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Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.
The Monday after a long weekend is the Mondayest Monday of them all. I’m going to do my best to make my life as easy as possible today, and that includes keeping my outfit simple.
This navy short-sleeved dress from Boss is the type of thing I keep hanging in my closet for days like this. Add some simple jewelry and a great shoe, and you’re ready to go.
The dress is $595 at Nordstrom and comes in sizes 0-14.
Sales of note for 11.5.24
- Nordstrom – Fall sale, up to 50% off!
- Ann Taylor – 11/5 only – 60% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + extra 25% off with your GAP Inc. credit card
- Bloomingdales is offering gift cards ($20-$1200) when you spend between $100-$4000+. The promotion ends 11/10, and the gift cards expire 12/24.
- Boden – 10% off new styles with code; free shipping over $75
- Eloquii – Fall clearance event, up to 85% off
- J.Crew – 40% off fall favorites; prices as marked
- J.Crew Factory – Up to 60% off everything + 60% off clearance
- Lo & Sons – Fall Sale, up to 35% off
- M.M.LaFleur – Save 25% sitewide
- Neiman Marcus – Up to 30% off on new arrivals
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – Buy one, get one – 50% off everything!
- White House Black Market – Holiday style event, take 25% off your entire purchase
anon
Did anyone else have to deal with irresponsible neighbors setting off fireworks on the 4th? We live in a regular suburban neighborhood. One of ours was launching aerial fireworks from their backyard. One of the malfunctioned and went off with a huge boom and the debris hit our house. Thankfully there was no damage to our siding or windows. There was litter over our entire yard and deck. We had to pick up all these plastic pieces so my husband could mow the lawn. Even a few days later I’m finding debris and bits of plastic.
Anon
No, but I read a compelling article in Outside magazine about why fireworks should be banned in favor of drone displays and I have to say that I’m in favor of it these days. I live in California and wildfires have been sparked by fireworks all over the west. I was at the beach on Friday and there was so much firework debris on the sand. Some of the chemicals are super toxic too – cadmium, lead.
I would show a picture of the debris to your neighbor.
Anonymous
I read a news story once about a guy who put a Roman candle on his head, which seems like a goofy but not idiotic thing to do… blew his head off. I’ve been terrified of them ever since, especially around drunk teenagers.
(I think that was actually what the article or op Ed was about actually, how almost every man has a story from their teen years that they are lucky to have survived.)
Anon
You’re responding to my comment above and I could have added that my great-grandfather permanently blinded himself in one eye after doing a “cherry bomb” on a dare. It’s insane.
Anon
A man in RI also killed himself over the weekend by putting a firework on his head. Terrible!
Anon
Sorry for any relatives reading this, but that’s kind of a Darwin award isn’t it?
Anonymous
I had an uncle who blew off his hand with fireworks as a kid. He became an alcoholic, beat his wife, and eventually took his own life. His 4 other siblings all turned out fine.
Anon
My dad blew off half of his thumb as a teenager. I grew up with that story and have never touched more than a sparkler.
Seventh Sister
Drone displays are actually quite lovely – I’m looking forward to some at the Olympics.
Anon
It’s just the way it is in both places I’ve lived recently. I put a movie on and hunker down with my dog to wait it out.
Anon
If it were only one day. I’m in Berkeley and could hear fireworks for up to a week before the Fourth of July and certainly have heard them through last night.
Anon
(To be clear, I’m hearing them from neighboring cities, not just Berkeley)
No Nonsense
Sounds like an annoying and frustrating situation. Depending on your relationship with those neighbors, the debris hitting your home and littering your property could be addressed in person (calmly). If it’s a matter of kids or teens setting off the fireworks, you could also bring a baggie with the plastic pieces since the adults may not know what happened. If the adults set off or were present for the fireworks, I would talk to them. Also, does your neighborhood or state have rules against fireworks? Do you have pets, little ones, or elderly in your home who were bothered by the fireworks? Conversation could be as simple as: “how the fireworks you set off impacted us (debris, noise, could have damaged your home, etc.)… can you please consider other launch sites in the future or stick to ‘Safe and Sane’ category fireworks (the ones that do not have aerial effects or explode such as sparklers, fountains, wheels, etc.).” If it’s something you intend to address with your neighbors, best to do it sooner versus later or you may find that this is an annual occurrence.
Anonymous
It’s illegal in our suburban town… and the new neighbors did it for 3 days straight, after 10p every day. I’m surprised no one called the cops tbh! They had big balloons out front saying family reunion all weekend so I’m hoping it was just this one event. Grumble.
Anonymous
Illegal in both places I’ve lived recently. Happened every night for at least a week in both places.
Anon
Yes, where I live you can shoot off fireworks for two weeks around the Fourth of July. People in my suburban neighborhood take advantage of it every damn day. It’s horrible for the dogs and we find debris in our yard regularly. We try to travel around the Fourth when we can.
anon
I live in a high fire risk state and I hear tons of illegal fireworks around the 4th of July. It drives me crazy because we all live in what is essentially a tinder box. If it was a close enough neighbor that debris hit my house and I knew them well, I’d most definitely have a chat with them right away. If I didn’t already know them well, but could tell generally where the fire works were coming from, I’d call the non-emergency dispatch line to report it.
For context, I live in an area that is enough of a tinder box that the fire department will come lights and sirens if someone is smoking in the woods nearby. Because they’d much rather do that than deal with the devastating consequences of a fire amidst a city.
SFAttorney
Yes, official firework display ended about 10 PM and illegal fireworks continued for about two hours afterwards. I eventually got to sleep and was awakened about 2 PM with a loud boom. Someone had started up up again
Pep
I’m lucky in that my dog is unbothered by fireworks, but I am always terrified that an errant one will land in my yard or on my roof and start a fire. A house in a neighboring town caught fire this year due to a neighbor shooting off fireworks and the elderly lady who lived there barely escaped and is now homeless.
Anon
That’s awful!
My household pets actively like fireworks, and I think they are fun and cool, but they are dangerous.
Some people just have really high risk tolerance for themselves and others.
Anon
It’s the high risk tolerance “for others” that enrages me.
anonshmanon
High risk tolerance is one thing, I also scratch my head about the fact that per the census, my neighborhood is rather low income, but blowing hundreds on sustained 6 weeks of fireworks is apparently no issue.
Anon
This is gross paternalism.
anonshmanon
Maybe? Fireworks are entirely illegal in my town and most of the region. We are in a high fire danger zone in the middle of a heatwave. It sucks for animals, pollutes the air and debris is littering the street. So there are many fine reasons not to light fireworks, even though I get that it’s fun to do.
anon
4:22, not so sure that it is.
Anon
It’s really not news that low income neighborhoods spend big on fireworks.
This goes for poor rural areas too (have you never driven past all the tattoos, fireworks, and ammo stores?).
Anonymous
Our neighbors were shooting off rockets in the street for about an hour and a half. I always stay home on July 4 to comfort our terrified dog and so that she doesn’t get trapped in the house alone if the neighbors catch it on fire.
Anon
Not illegal where I live, but my dog and I have spent a lot of time in an interior closet recently. I get it for the 4th, that’s fine, but I am so over fireworks in the days before and after.
Anon
Yup! I hate fireworks for a lot of reasons.
I was at my bf’s house (row home) and the neighbor two doors down was setting them off in the WOODED backyard. These are traditional city row houses so also very close together on all sides! Idiots.
anon
It happens every year, for weeks before the 4th. A teenager on my block died several years ago when one exploded in his hands. It was… awful.
Too many for small town police to deal with, and we are adjacent to Chicago, which of course has enough crime that they can’t (wont) address fireworks.
Seventh Sister
I live in LA – people set off fireworks all night every night for the two weeks before and the two weeks after July 4. We did the non-aerial kind but saw plenty of aerial launches (and my kid was with friends in Inglewood which is basically The City of Roman Candles). If you feel comfortable approaching your neighbors, I’d tell them and ask them to come over and clear the debris.
Anonymous
I’m disgusted by how some folks are so clueless about how they can affect animals. I was sitting on a hill on Friday that was across a really busy street from a park where our town gathers for its display. A dog came skittering through traffic and sprinting up the hill at full speed, ran past me, narrowly missed getting hit by a car behind me and sprinted off toward where an even busier road is. I’m haunted by the look of pure terror on his face. No one was looking for him. Meanwhile, a woman near us brought a pitbull on a leash that kept wanting to hide under cars and was getting increasingly aggressive about it. Who the hell thinks it’s a bright idea to bring their dog to a fireworks show???
I couldn’t enjoy any of it. Frankly, I’m still feeling sick over the poor sprinter and praying he didn’t get hit and somehow made his way home.That look on his face.
Anonymous
I agree. Why is the noise necessary? My dog was just over a year old, standing at the screen door looking out when idiot neighbours a few houses over behind the house set off fireworks (not on the holiday or even the day before and when it’s illegal). My dog was frantic. If any door in the house had been open, he would have bolted. I could not settle him for hours after. He is still terrified of the noise many years later and even of similar sound like a nail gun.
Anonymous
I hate backyard fireworks and wish I still lived in a state where they are illegal. However, I’d trade two weeks of fireworks for the full nights of gunfire that are July 4 and NYE in my neighborhood.
Anonymous
Love this dress. In-house counsel and I’m supposed to attend a mediation next month. I haven’t been to one in years and years. Do we think something like this dress would be appropriate?
Anon
Absolutely. And it doesn’t matter what you wear, you’ve got the $$. But I’d wear this to a meditation. I’d probably toss on a blazer because it’s likely to be cold. I dress for comfort too, they can take a while.
Anon
I love the dress, too, and I think it would be perfect.
No Face
Appropriate from a professionalism stand point, but I prefer layers for mediation because the conference room temperature can be too cold or too hot.
H13
Would folks be open to sharing how much they pay for their cell service and data allowance? We have two lines on Verizon for about $100/month. Limited data. I feel like we could be doing better and will likely add a kid before too long.
Anon
$70 for two lines, unlimited everything, T Mobile.
Anon
Boost! We paid $25 / line for unlimited data , but they actually recently dropped our rates. I think it’s like $22/line now. After a certain amount of data it does slow down but in the 8 years we’ve had this plan it’s only happened to me twice … and I use a lot of data.
You have to buy your phone outright, but that’s fine with us. I’m still on my family plan, my parents have cheaper smartphones and I usually buy an older iPhone model and keep it til it dies – I think my sister does the same. If you care about having the newest model, it might not be the plan for you.
Anecdata
Boost (owned by echostar/dish) now offers postpaid with device included plans, although they have a very limited set of devices – it’s $60/month on the most expensive device plan (new iPhone every year)
anon
+1
Boost. I used to have Republic wireless, which was purchased like Boost. Just me, and honestly I have no idea what I have…. the cheapest unlimited? I pay less than $20/month… grandfathered in with my very cheap Republic Wireless rates.
I am not the kind of person who spends $ on frequent phone upgrades. I get a new phone if it dies and I can’t fix it/replace the needed part.
I am retiring early!
Peloton
Unlimited everything, one line, T-Mobile, around $50. Works great.
Anon
T Mobile very basic plan, 5 lines, $161/month all-in. Unlimited everything. Every time I review plans, this is still the best one for us other than one of the prepaid plans. Mint doesn’t work for us (I think because of our phones? I can’t remember why, but I tried, and it did not).
Anon
Following with interest. I pay Verizon $125/month for unlimited everything, plus Disney+ and Apple Music. But I’m sick of the price, and thinking about switching carriers and just paying Disney and Apple Music separately. My bf uses Google Fi for phone service and he gets great service for $50/month. They use T-Mobiles towers.
anon
Just for you? Ouch. Switch this weekend!
anon
$90 per month, one line, ATT, unlimited everything and everywhere (including international).
Anonymous
T-Mobile’s plans for people who are over 50 are really good. I can’t remember exactly what we are paying right now, and it includes financing on 2 phones + part of our Netflix subscription, but it seemed like the best deal for us.
Anon
I do the $15/mo Mint plan, which is owned by TMobile. It’s great!
Anon
Same here. I was on T-Mobile before I switched to Mint so I have experienced absolutely no difference other than it’s cheaper. It’s fabulous.
Anon
My DH and I also switched to Mint from T-Mobile in 2020. We’re happy! For new phones, I bought one with 0% financing, and he paid for his outright.
Walnut
$45 on Visible with unlimited everything and an Apple Watch. I could also do the $25 plan easily, but work reimburses $50.
Service quality is equivalent to Verizon for me.
Nesprin
ATT prepaid, 2 lines ~10gb of data (we never use more than 6), 75$
Runcible Spoon
Around $70/month with T-Mobile for almost unlimited everything, including international — texts and data are unlimited overseas, calls have a cost per. I suppose there may be some countries for which T-Mobile does not have coverage, but I haven’t found any yet!
Anon
Unfortunately, T Mobile has lousy coverage in some parts of the country. My sister lives in Las Vegas and has TM, but her coverage in PA is pretty bad. A flight attendant friend had T Mobile (the international coverage was a big plus) but he also switched a couple of years ago because the coverage was unreliable. He and we, use Verizon. I pay around $200 for 5 lines, unlimited data, talk, text, hot spot, etc.
Anon
Anyone in UK and want to share? It’s turned into an additional utility bill!
Anonymous
Advice? I walked by a colleague gossiping about me last week in the hallway. I don’t really care about the gossip, but ever since the colleague has been so artificially sickly sweet and it’s making me uncomfortable. She’s given me two fake compliments and brought me coffee already this morning. How do I make this stop? Can I send her a slack message that says ‘lets pretend it never happened?’. I want to be left alone.
Anonymous
At least she knows she screwed up. You say you want to pretend like it never happened, but for me that would forever color my opinion of her. I’d say just grin and bear it and leave it to karma after that.
Anon
Grey rock — just do your work & ignore the saccharine. She’ll get the hint eventually.
Anon
I’d probably say something like “you can stop kissing up to me and you can also stop gossiping about me.”
Anon
On the playground sure, in the office, just ignore it. Let her kiss up and just know what you know.
Anon
No I really would. I’m a direct person. It’s not playground. It’s just honest and to the point.
Anon
But what does it accomplish? To me it sounds like a way to make an actual enemy out of someone who feels like they got caught and is being awkward about it now.
Anon
It’s stupid from an office politics perspective, sometimes you need to just be a little deaf and ignore things like this.
Anon
She knows she was caught. There’s no reason to pretend it didn’t happen.
I have been a direct person for my entire career and have had zero issues with office politics. C suite adjacent, directly reporting to a C suite exec at a F 50.
Anonymous
1:21 She knows she was caught and is trying to make up for it. So there is no reason to insult her efforts. All that does is make for a more difficult working environment and embarrass her further. There is a difference between being direct and relishing when someone is wrong. Belittling her make-up efforts and pointing out that she was wrong when both of you already know she was wrong falls into the latter.
You may be high up enough or old enough that no one calls you out when your “directness” is relishing power over someone else. But that’s what that response is. And it doesn’t make people want to work with you, even if you do work for a F50 company.
Anonymous
Could you tell if she was saying anything malicious or just stupid gossip. My reaction to ” Can you believe Anon wore those ugly shoes again” would be different to ” Can you believe Anon is sleeping with the boss and that is why she got promoted”.
Anonymous
Help me shop for dining things like placemats and candle holders (tea lights? Long skinny ones?)? Trying to make dinner feel more special for my family of 4. Chargers? Napkins? Not sure what I want. We already have a lot of cloth napkins that we mostly mix instead of match. I love all things blue… thank you!
anon
I go to world market, tj maxx, or thrift stores for dining items. What table shape do you have? I’m a fan of shorter candles, over tapers especially with kids (they can easily get tipped over). You can switch it up between table cloths, runners, or just placemats depending on your preference. If you mix and match, i think tonal works well, keep everything in shades of blue with maybe an accent (white, yellow, etc)
Loofah
Good old HomeGoods.
Anonymous
Etsy
Anon
We eat dinner by candlelight every night. I get long tapers on Amazon in different colors and change by mood or season. If you don’t have holders, you can find them there too. I’m partial to brass and crystal and found ours at a vintage shop. IMHO, candlelight is the biggest bang for the buck.
Jamie
What do you use to prevent wax drip onto the candelabra base or holder? I have wooden ones and would like to use them but don’t want candle wax everywhere. Read somewhere to use cupcake wrappers but that seems like a fire hazard. Help please.
Anon for this
beeswax candles don’t drip so you can use those. Alternately, you can get these little glass circles that sit at the bottom of your tapers and catch the drips. They’re pretty invisible and it’s what a lot of churches use.
Update – the internet tells me that they’re called ‘candle rings’ but I just looked up ‘taper candle drip catcher’ and the thing I’m talking about popped up.
Anon
Dripless candles for the win!
Cerulean
The item you’re looking for is called a bobeche.
Jamie
Thank you all! I figured you all would be able to help me. I appreciate it.
Senior Attorney
I think it’s a seasonal thing, but Trader Joe’s has fantastic white and off-white tapers for a great price if you can remember to look out for them in November/December.
Anon
Ikea!
Financial Planner Break Up
I’m breaking up with my financial advisor. I’ve posted about them before but we just had our annual meeting and…. yea. I’m done. They were great but are part of a large national brand/franchise/affiliate and our relationship has run it’s course. We are now in “coast mode” so to speak, both DH and I hitting 40 this year, family formation is now done, retirement accounts are doing their thing, and so forth.
Where I do still see value in my financial advisor is that they help with a few things: (1) gives me assurances 1-2x annually that we are on track with our retirement savings, (2) help us execute backdoor ROTHs, (3) help us invest our IRAs, rebalance when necessary. They currently do this primarily through IRAs invested through some of their “actively managed funds”… for which we are paying a huge fee load. Plus, the performance of these funds has been so-so, not great, and not beating my non-managed, less expensive funds. So, we’re done.
Can/would a fee-based financial planner help us with 1, 2 and 3 above? I’m assuming #1 is an easy yes. #2…. I think yes? Or, is this actually not that hard to do on our own? And for #3 – we need to get out of their active managed accounts and probably just invest in…. ETFs? Mutual funds? Can a fee-based planner make recommendations for specific funds to invest in? Can this planner also help us rebalance risk allocations as we go? How about evaluate life insurance and STD coverages (I think we are way over-insured at the moment)?
And, if you have a good rec in the greater Boston (or in Boston proper) area, I’m all ears. We have shy of $500k in IRAs and $50k in 529s that would need help managing. What does this cost generally?
TIA.
anon
I do backdoor roths on my own every year through Vanguard. It’s super, super easy.
Anonymous
I looked into this in April – I didn’t think it could be done! We have a lot of money in other IRAs (rolled over 401ks) – is that the difference? Maybe if you just have a 401k and no IRAs you can do it? Otherwise I believe you’re taxed on all of the $ in your IRAs
Anonymous
#2) Backdoor Roth is actually pretty easy to do on your own. I have to google the steps every year because I forget, but it’s doable and easy (I have Vanguard and they make it extra easy). For #3, I just throw everything in mutual funds, which statistically do as well or better than actively managed funds anyway.
OP
How do you pick which funds to invest in? How often are you reevaluating?
Also, you mention Vanguard. I have Fidelity – I have almost $400k with Fidelity in my company’s 401k. Could I just put all the IRAs and 529s in Fidelity and use one of their free advisors (which I think they have? I know vanguard does)? What purpose do those advisors serve?
Anon
I have paid a fee only financial planner (chosen via wealthramp), and I’m happy with it. We structured it as a one-time $5k payment and things are kind of set it and forget it for now (late 30s).
I have also done a free fidelity 1:1 as they are my provider at work. I liked the person and thought his advice was solid, and better than most free advisors I’ve heard of (less than half our retirement is in fidelity – back door roths are with vanguard and I DIY those). What was nice about fidelity is there was no upselling because my company is already paying them. I would do the free fidelity 1:1 and then see what else you need from there.
Also, for tracking everything I’ve really been liking monarch money.
Anonymous
We use the Bogleheads’ 3 funds approach (https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio), with the %s of each based on our age/targeted retirement year/general risk (right now we’re 68% US stock, 12% intl stock, 20% bonds. We’re in our late 30s). Did some basic research on the best options available for each category (total US stock, total international stock, bond), but I think it ended up being what the Boglehead recommendations were anyway. We rebalance once a year. I’ve never used the Vanguard free advisors, so can’t speak to what they do. I should add it’s also difficult for us to invest in individual stocks (husband and I are both lawyers and have to get clearance through our firms for individual stock purchases) so mutual funds generally make sense for us anyway.
anon
Yes, you can do that – move all to Fidelity and use their free advisor to get things organized. I also find their general customer service lines quite good, but I have a higher balance now so I think my calls may go through quicker.
I’m not sure now what the different levels of advising services are, but my current Fidelity advisor was helpful in answering questions (or getting his assistant to find answers for me), but still tried to push me away from the simple index fund approach I wanted. However, when I said, let me think about it… then “no”, they weren’t unpleasant. It is nice to have someone to call for basic advice. But I would invest in a decent accountant some time in the next decade, and also favor fee only financial planners.
Anon
I don’t think you need a financial advisor for any of this. You don’t need to actively “manage” money in a retirement account or 529. It sits there and grows until you need it.
anon
+1 that a financial advisor really isn’t necessary for any of this. If you don’t want to think about rebalancing, target date funds are really helpful.
Anonymous
I have a similar profile to you- 40, 3 kids, About 1.2M in retirement vehicles (2/3 of it IRAs, some of that is Roth), $200k in 529s, and about $300k in non retirement savings. We just do it on our own. The 529s are managed by the holding company, most of our retirement is in basic mutual funds (Swpxx) or more conservative vehicles.
We might be losing out but I don’t feel like we need to pay someone to actively manage. Interested in the feedback.
anon
Honestly, I would move everything to Fidelity, and move everything into total stock market index funds, with some in high yield money market + total bond funds. .
I would go to the Bogleheads website, and post an question outlining your ages, current investments, and ask for basic guidance so you can manage this yourself. I encourage you to learn some of this yourself, just so you understand the simple basics. It will save you a lot of money down the road. I did this, and the help on Bogleheads was phenomenal. The point is STAY AWAY for any managed investments. You loose so much $ over the long term. Put it all in broad index funds, and don’t touch it. Just watch it grow, stay the course, don’t play any games. It is simple, actually. You can micromanage every detail if you want, but most people keep it very simple and do incredibly well.
My situation is more complex than yours (more $ / I’m older / tax issues etc…), but I am meeting with a fee only financial advisor that was recommended by Bogleheads. I pay for a one time review of all of my financial plan, and he gives me his recommendations for everything, and then over time I can return as needed and pay hourly if/when I have more questions. The recs are phenomenal, and all favor the Vanguard Total index funds model (but I do mine all at Fidelity as Vanguard’s customer service is poor and sometimes you have questions/want a better website).
And you don’t need a local financial advisor anymore. You can do everything over zoom/phone calls, just sending your documents as needed. So I think my advisor is in…. Texas? Who knows.
Another Anon
Would you mind sharing your financial advisor’s info?
anon
Rick Ferri
https://rickferri.com/about-rick/
He is very busy/popular, so you can get on his waiting list via his website, and sometime (hopefully in the next year), he will open up times for a 15 minute call/free session to discuss your goals and figure out if you are a good fit. Then he will schedule a prolonged portfolio review appointment based on his openings. I was not in a huge hurry for making major financial changes, so simply getting on his waiting list was a slow motivator for me to clean up my financial planning. He was recommended highly on the Bogleheads website.
Anon
A friend recently shared her motto with me and I love it: everyday read something, learn something, do something active, and do something creative. I’ve long admired how well rounded she is, and want to incorporate this into my life.
That being said – I have never been terribly creative, artistic, or good at making things. I’ve enjoyed a bigger project here and there, but struggle with bite sized creative pursuits.
What’s the creative equivalent of reading one chapter or running one mile? Any ideas?
anon
Some ideas: write a few lines in a journal, paint by number kit, learn how to take better photos with your phone, pick out flowers for a planter pot, write a poem, cross stitch, crochet, learn to sew, make a collage, take a pottery class, get a workbook to teach you how to sketch/watercolor/calligraphy.
Anon
Cooking something or even putting together a salad — creativity doesn’t have to be high art, nor does it have to be complicated. You could rearrange furniture in a room, or even knickknacks on a shelf. You could buy a bunch of flowers and distribute them into different vases. Frame a postcard or a photo and be thoughtful about what kind of frame you’d like.
Anon
Cooking was my first thought, too. Or you could take up crocheting and crochet a row or two each night.
anon
Love this idea. While i do love cooking, daily dinner doesn’t ever feel super creative to me. My favorite quick creative activities: fun writing (i find writing prompts and do like 5-15 minutes), watercolor (i have post card size paper, use online tutorials). I’ve also seen people do junk journaling or scrap booking. I have a cross stitch project i really want to finish this year that my mom started, but totally need to learn how to do that.
Anon
Two outside the box ideas: creatively solving a problem or coming up with something new at work and spending time in nature.
Creative isn’t necessarily artistic – but it does involve approaching things differently. So, whether its a new process or template or something at work or working on art, I think it all applies! And, using your brain to come to creative solutions for things is good brain “exercise” and will benefit you in more artistic creative pursuits too!
While spending time in nature isn’t creative, it certainly gets my creative juices flowing and is so peaceful.
anonshmanon
Spend a serious effort (15 minutes) on Duolingo, turn up the music and sing along or dance.
Anonymous
Another thought instead of making art yourself, why not support the arts? You’re not going to do that every day but it does exercise a creative muscle. You could also expand your music tastes or watch movies you wouldn’t normally pick. I wouldn’t just focus on making things if that’s not of interest to you.
Anon
I love the sentiment behind this, but giving myself a daily to do list of 4 things is a no go for me. I have enough demands on my time, I don’t need to add more that are just going to make me feel bad when I ultimately can’t keep it up.
Anon
+1
CK
I bought a doodle book from Amazon. It’s fun. I love to doodle and this got my out of my doodle rut and I was able to try new things. It’s easy to do. Also coloring books — so many good ones out there!
Anon
I try to write one haiku every day. I don’t even have to write it on paper, sometimes I just write it in my head while driving or taking a walk. Most of them are crap, but once in a while there is one that I think is kind of nice. I think creativity is a lot about not waiting for inspiration, but rather just doing it. Like putting on your shoes and going for a walk even though you’ll never run a mile.
Peloton
Morning pages.
Anon
Definitely doing my makeup in the morning, and sometimes putting together outfits.
Friend
Cooking used to satisfy my creative itch
These days it’s more like finding a good gif or meme to send to a friend
Or maybe listening to a new song or a Netflix comedy show
Would love to get back into knitting soon
Anon
My new neighbor has one of those travel consulting jobs where he is gone all the time. His wife doesn’t work and they have pretty full time help with their 3 kids. It hit me today with how much of a cost that job imposes — all those years where a spouse isn’t working and paying for help on top of it. I guess it saves paying for childcare for some people but I never spent my whole income on child care (and benefits are often IMO worth it, especially if you get good or cheap health insurance), but my kids did few activities at first and then we only did one (so both kids swam, etc) and only recently did kids get to pick solo activities. Working even big fancy jobs is often a while-family endeavor (doubly so if the job has hard logistics but the pay is modest: trucking, military, pilots). No one really explains this to kids as they pick out jobs. What works when you are solo suddenly doesn’t if you have more responsibilities than paying bills and maybe keeping a plant alive. Even if some of us never have kids, we may have eldercare at some point. Not starting my day on a happy note but something about it was eye opening today.
Anon
Yup. I work in emergency management – pays moderately but often long hours in my area or deployments outside of it – and it’s been great as a child free single person and fine but less good as a DINK. Don’t know how I’d do it with kids (and I don’t want to deploy away from family when I have kids) so trying to figure out a pivot in the next few years.
Loofah
Hello from another person in EM!
Anon
Yup. My husband works in medium sized finance and I work at an MBB (non-partner). I swapped to an internal career track as my youngest had health issues and now has ongoing therapies. Our single biggest expenses are childcare plus the private school that can accomodate my kid’s therapies/IEP.
We talk often about how we balance everything as a family – mom’s job has amazing insurance plus more flexible hours/WFH. Dad’s job pays more but requires him to be in the office 3-4days/wk. Mom/dad have both opted to turn down ‘bigger’ jobs because they are prioritizing family time – that may change when the kids are older. Life (and jobs) are a jungle gym, not a ladder. It’s ok to not know what you want to do right out of school and to change careers!
anon
I was in consulting for 10 years and got out before I had kids mainly for this reason, and I think most folks leave around that time for the same reason.
From what I observed, the people who stay and have SAH spouses and multiple kids (both men and women) are highly compensated and are partner or on the partner track (so think $250k at a minimum for a Manager or equivalent, $500+ for partner) and can easily afford help. Also, most of them seem to really dislike their spouse and kids and prefer being on the road to spending time with them.
Anon
I’m at this same point where I’m tired of the demanding job and travel, and can’t imagine how anyone does this with children. Well, I know one person whose parent traveled 4 days a week their whole childhood. The parents are now divorced and the adult children have little relationship with the consultant parent. I don’t see how travel and being an involved parent and spouse are compatible.
Friend
Cats in the cradle and the silver spoon…
Anon
It is eye-opening, but I don’t know that it would do any good to explain it to the younger generation. I would not have listened to anyone who told me I could not have it all. My daughter is starting a BigLaw job this fall and I’m guessing she will probably marry her current boyfriend who is also headed to BigLaw. She’s grown up in a two-lawyer family and has seen me scale back in order to be able to better manage the household and kids, but I don’t really think it’s registered with her that there will be difficulties and choices.
Anon
Yes. I knew I didn’t want to be a teacher b/c I saw how hard it was on my mom. And then I had kids and it was, oh, our schedules would at least be in sync. And pension. Oh well!
I have basically been on .25 FTE at BigLaw for the past year with a kid with complex medical needs, a parent at the end stages of cancer, and another parent who is crumbling under the stress of it all and never learned to cook, then had COVID so could not go out to the restaurants he had been using for food. FWIW, I don’t make $$$, just eat what I kill, which isn’t a lot but enough to keep the lights on. I have some good clients and work I mastered decades ago, so it’s do-able but not if I were younger and still learning the ropes. It’s no joy doing work from the ICU, but I guess it beats the breadlines. My next career will have “the hard stop” as a concept, which I’d really love right above now.
Anonymous
+1 I didn’t realize until I was in a similar position myself that my parents made having two big jobs work because they only had one fairly self-sufficient child. Even then, they kind of traded off having the “bigger” job over the years. My husband and I have not been able to make 2 big jobs work with a child with higher support needs, and I’m considering quitting altogether when we have our 2nd child.
Seventh Sister
When I was in my early 20s, I assumed I’d be single forever and never, ever find anyone willing to marry me or have kids. I was expecting, a la Bridget Jones, to die alone and be eaten by my cats. Extreme, but not that out of the norm for very young people.
Anonymous
Me too.
Anon
Me three. I thought I had to earn every dollar I would ever see, so yeah I wanted a good salary at any cost.
Anon
Same.
Anon
DH is a military pilot retiring from the service in 9 months (🙌🏼) and then going to the airlines.
For the generation of military cargo pilots who came up in the thick of Iraq and Afghanistan…they were gone ~270-300 days a year for years. Sure, they’d come home to do their laundry, but they were just gone. For a spouse, you didn’t have a choice – if you had kids, you had to SAH. But if the pilot was single, it was a pretty cool life flying all over the world for weeks at a time, breaking down on tropical islands (always tropical islands 😏), bringing home wine from Europe, etc.
But I don’t think there’s anyone who joins the military thinking they’re going to be at home. And so the military has huge chunks of SAH spouses that you don’t see in the civilian sector. One because the military member is gone so much, but also because service members are relocated every 2 years and the spouse simply can’t maintain a career. (The historical, grim reason behind the frequent relocations is that you never want to be irreplaceable – if you’re killed in battle, other people need to know how to do your job and vice versa.) I’m the only spouse I know right now with a full-time job, and not just a job, but a career.
To compensate for this, Congress gives military members generous retirement benefits. You can retire at 20 years with 40-60% of your base pay for life (with COLAs). And you get free healthcare for life.
So sure, right now my husband is in charge of 10,000 people and only gets paid $175k. But he’ll get $65k per year for the rest of his life (plus COLA). And because he’s only 45, he still has time to have a second career, to wit, he’ll go to one of the major airlines. Their pay starts at $75k for first year pilots, but quickly escalates to $250k within 5 years.
My mom was a single mom flight attendant when I was growing up. Some vast percentage of her salary went to paying for a nanny to stay overnight with me. (Mom preferred grandmotherly types who wanted to supplement their Social Security.) Mom stuck with it for the pension. I remember her suffering with depression in my high school years, and she’d be crying saying she had to go to work for the pension. Unfortunately, her airline declared bankruptcy in the ’90s and the government took over her pension, so it’s a fraction of what it should be, but it’s still guaranteed income. I think the pension today is probably about equivalent to what she paid out all those years for a nanny.
So there is a huge crisis looming. There are practically no more pensions, so people have no incentive to work demanding jobs that involve a great deal of sacrifice, and we all know the pay for these jobs isn’t good enough. I’m very interested to see the labor market change in the coming years as workers just say no. Corporations have these mind-boggling profits and their concession to workers is a free coffee maker. Nah.
Anon
My cousin’s (colonel eventually) wife was an accountant and she was one of the first remote workers I knew about b/c she was able to work anywhere in the world. The other area where I’ve seen it work is where one spouse is a DODS teacher or both have high-demand health care jobs where the army (of whomever) needs both of them to stay in the workforce. One may be a civilian, but both are seen as a valuable package (and when it stops working for one, they may both go elsewhere). But absent anything like that, it’s so much of a slog that I get why people just throw in the towel, especially with family likely far away (it is for me also).
Anon
My mom was a bookkeeper & dispatcher and managed to do it remotely in the 1970s!
Anon
I’m the EM from above, and I came very close to joining the military in my mid 20s and ultimately decided that a) I didn’t want to be gone all of the time and b) that my job controlled enough of my life as is, and I resented that at times, so I didn’t want to commit to a job that controlled my life even more.
I ultimately left a job that had me working more 60-90 hour weeks than it did 40-60 hour weeks (where I made 60k!), required to be on call (24/7 on call, report to office or other location in less than an hour, for 1 week a month every month), required me to work frequent overnights, holidays, weekends, required that I lived within a 10 mile radius of the office (see the on call requirement), and even when not on call required that I would drop everything and work at a moment’s notice, and had frequent blackout periods when we could not take leave. I actually worked alongside the military in this job quite a bit and found that my team worked longer hours with less perks (what my team worked in one shift, they split into two shifts; they got all meals provided (and hot chow! not even MREs) while we had to fend for ourselves). This job did have a pension, but if I stayed for a full 25 years my pension payout would be $1200/mo. I figured that the juice was no longer worth the squeeze, even though I loved the job itself and the mission. After one boyfriend broke up with me more or less because of the schedule, I realized this was a really family unfriendly career AND it didn’t pay enough to outsource anything.
I still work in the public sector and I still work in EM (and I still love it) and while I still can be activated or deployed with little notice for weeks at a time, that’s the exception (1-2x a year) and not the rule (9+ months a year).
Anon
I’m not seeing how “no more pensions” = greater worker freedom to turn down unfavorable conditions?
People still have to accept jobs, including ones with significant costs, for health insurance, to pay rent, pay for daycare, etc
I don’t think we get actual improved working conditions without either: significant regulation, or some kind of very large worker shortage (either natural, eg. caused by population shrinking, or something caused by a much stronger safety net, where people really don’t have to work to meet basic needs) – and we’re a long way from either of those
Anon
I had that job and we managed not to have a stay at home spouse. Fortunately the kids were in elementary school when the heavy travel started. I had a morning sitter to get them up and breakfasted & dropped off at school. Husband worked a regular 9-5 and did pickups at the end of the day (school + an after school program that they loved.)
When there was one of those random no-school days coming up, I either arranged my travel around it to be home that day, or asked the morning babysitter if she had full day availability that day.
The travel was really good for my career and earning potential so I wouldn’t change anything.
My kids were just reminiscing about their after school program this weekend and how much they loved it.
anonn
I specifically did not choose healthcare because of all the weekends and holidays my mom was working. On the flip side, I took on a lot of law-school debt not realizing that it limited my option to be a SAHM, or that I’d even want that option.
Anon for this
My husband was in the military and then has been a marine engineer (merchant marine) working internationally since just before we got married. We have kids and he has missed Christmases, birthdays, funerals… all of it. He made decent money ($180-200K) but was gone 180-ish days/year.
I opted to not be a SAH parent because I wanted him to be able to quit and walk away and survive on a much reduced salary. My family likes to think they’re supportive, but really… 2 hours of babysitting one kid a couple times a month when it’s convenient for you (I have 3 kids…) is not the level of family help needed. We ended up getting au pairs in lieu of a nervous breakdown, but even with that… it put so much on me. I did step kind of… diagonally? in my career? not 100% back, but not on the same track I was on before. I have a job which makes me work a lot but I can be physically home between 5-8PM daily and don’t work holidays. Between preschool and childcare and camps and our au pair, we spend around $50-60K/year on childcare. Most of that (almost $40K) is the au pair, but for comparison a nanny in our area would be $60-70K minimum AND we had a hard time finding nannies who would be paid over the table (necessary for both our jobs).
He’s finally decided to switch careers because he sees the toll it’s taken on the kids and on me. He’s trying out a ‘normal’ job which comes with a big big pay cut but also means he gets to see his kids on their birthdays.
Anonymous
I was actually thinking about “physical” jobs yesterday. Jobs where you optimally perform in your 20s and 30s but then you age out of because of work related wear and tear or just because your body can’t keep up with demands of the job.
Not sure kids think about aging bodies (or family life balance like you point out) when they consider different careers.
Anon
I have a friend who is a college educated construction worker. His plan is to work construction in his 20s and 30s because he likes having a physical job but then to become an English teacher afterwards. He knows he won’t be able to or won’t want to work construction for too long (many men in his family work construction) but enjoys it so wants to do it while he can.
Anon
Looking for advice on wedding present etiquette: A former co-worker and casual friend invited me and my partner to her wedding celebration pretty late in the game — I suspect after some cancellations, because she invited me a couple of days before the RSVP deadline. Totally fine!, I wasn’t necessarily expecting to be invited. We weren’t able to go. The invitation says no presents are necessary, but if you’d like to give a gift, you can contribute to a honeymoon fund. For some reason I’m super unsure how much to give. I’m in a HCOL city, and have been giving about $150 x 2 lately for good friends’ weddings when we both go. But since I was invited as sort of an afterthought here, that seems like a lot? Or is that irrelevant? But short of that, I’m not sure what is the right amount. Thanks in advance for any advice about scaling wedding gifts.
Anon
I’d do $200 total (for you and your partner).
FWIW, I’m in Philly (so lower COL, but lots of friends are in HCOL areas) and I give between $100-$150 per person at most weddings I go to. If your average is $150, I think dropping it to $100 or $125 for a B list invite is fine!
Anon
Oh I missed that you weren’t able to go! Then I think a card is okay.
anon
Would it be so terrible just to send a card without a monetary gift? You aren’t attending the wedding and weren’t a first choice guest AND they said no gifts necessary. I definitely wouldn’t do $200, but I don’t live in a HCOL area and so I might be massively out of touch.
Anon
+1 I would just send a card. I don’t think it’s really expected to give a gift when you were invited as an afterthought and can’t attend. Definitely not $200!
anon
I live in a VHCOL area and I see no problem with just sending a thoughtful card. But, my crowd is very much of the the “we just want you to celebrate with us” and has gift ideas on the website just because Auntie and Uncle So-and-so have a strong need to give SOMETHING and it’s better to channel that then to get a giant bread machine that doesn’t fit in one’s small home.
Anon
Agreed. I would feel zero obligation to contribute to the honeymoon fund.
Anon
If you aren’t going you can definitely just send a card, especially if they’ve already indicated presents aren’t necessary. I treasured the thoughtful cards I received for my wedding!
If you are moved to send a present I’d go with somewhere in the 50-100 range, but truly nobody expects that of someone who wasn’t able to attend and isn’t that close to the wedding couple.
Anon
I got D list invited to the ceremony but not the reception last summer and I didn’t send anything! Not even a card.
Anon
How rude of them! I haven’t heard of people being invited to the ceremony but not the reception. I’ve heard of the other way around for people who want a tiny ceremony with just a few people. I also wouldn’t have sent anything in your position.
Anon
Yeah etiquette says you can invite to the reception but not the ceremony, but not the other way around.
Anon
I was so offended! I posted about here when it happened, and you all told me I wasn’t overreacting, so thank you all for that!
Anon
I’m 30 and living in an apartment that I don’t love but gets the job done (fantastic location, in my budget, good storage, small patio). This is my first solo apartment, and I’ve been here for 2 years and just resigned for a third year (locked in such a good rate that I couldn’t give it up, especially in this rectal market)
I’m trying to bloom where I’ve planted and enjoy my apartment more as is. I’d like it to feel more polished, put together, and trendy.
It took me long enough, but I’ve finally got my wardrobe and hair and makeup in a place I love so I just need to get my apartment to this place.
I love my furniture and most of my artwork, so not looking to replace that. Just little accessories, storage solutions that work better for me, and small things that can really make it feel pulled together and adult while still being practical? I already do fresh flowers every week that I love.
Anon
I’m a bit believer in investing in my apartment even though I’m a renter. Upgrade your cooking tools, sheets and towels.
Loofah
We just moved so the things on my mind are rugs, throw pillows, and throw blankets. Could you upgrade what you have?
I think also really luxe bedding is a great investment in yourself/your place.
Depending on your style, new faceplates for your outlets are fun and renter-friendly. Same with cabinet and furniture knobs (anthro always has some fun ones, same with Etsy).
CK
Maybe swap out the hardware or some of the light fixtures? Just save the original so you can put them back when you move. I think lighting can make a big difference in how a space feels. Some YouTube videos on refreshing apartments might give you some inspiration.
Anon
Swap out your shower head!! It’s stupid easy and makes a big difference if your bathroom came with a cheap standard one.
CK
Yes! A nice showerhead is worth it!
Anonymous
+1 to lighting.
anonshmanon
For me the answer is plants!
RiskedCredit
Your post has an awesome typo that made me laugh after a very tough weekend. Thank you for that.
I think you need to find your style. Might be an idea to go on a few open houses to get a feel for different decor, take pictures of what you like and recreate that vibe you liked from other places in your home.
I love home design magazines and grew up reading the ones my grandmother had. Elle Decor is excellent. Architectural Digest is also very good.
Anon
I need more information about the rectal market. Haha
Anon
Apartment Therapy has great but practical inspiration. And it is simply amazing what some renters have done with their place.
ALT
I’m a couple years older than you and have finally settled into a condo so these are what I’m doing. As a renter, you can probably do a lot of these things too, just save the existing fixtures and replace when you move out:
-replacing lighting fixtures to ones that are my taste
-replacing cabinet hardware to ones that are my taste
-painting walls my preferred colors rather than builder beige
-upgrading to “expensive” bed linens (expensive is relative…I usually buy Target bed linens but splurged on West Elm)
-investing in nice rugs and thick rug pads
-browsing antique markets for unique accessories and knickknacks
-I’m slowly upgrading my furniture from
IKEA to antiques or furniture I don’t have to assemble myself
-making functional, attractive storage a priority: I have a storage unit in my basement that I previously never used so I’m building out storage in it to make it functional; I am focusing on closed storage pieces in my living spaces to tuck away stuff
-table linens! I have a runner and placemats that I use in my dining space and it feels very grown up
Anonymous
I used to work in science publishing and one of my editors collected and shared typos that made him laugh. How I wish he was still with us! Thank you!
Anon 2
I was out last week so apologies if I’m dredging up something covered extensively…. By way of context for my post, I’m a registered independent and have voted for both democratic and republicans historically. I’m voting democrat no matter who is on the ticket (voted Dem in 2016 and 2020, too, fwiw).
I strongly believe today that Biden will lose. Do people think there’s any Dem who the party can circle around and raise up to beat Trump at this point? I personally think Harris will lose, but that’s more a hunch than based on anything factual. Really curious what some of you think on this as I’ve been gleefully unplugged and am just starting to think through everything that’s transpired over the last 10 days, including the latest doubling (tripling?) down by Biden, per my WSJ push notification just now, that he’s “running this race to the end.”
I’m not particularly interested in the “but Trump’s old too” or “but we’ve known he was old since the start” narrative – I really just want the practical thinking around the politics of getting someone elected to the presidency at this stage.
Anon
Gretchen Whitmer?
Anon
No, I don’t think anyone can win at this point. If we had a time machine and could have nominated an inoffensive, fairly moderate, straight man like Andy Beshear last year, maybe. Perhaps Whittmer would have even had a chance. But at this point we either nominate the completely unelectable Harris, or we pass over her for a white man and create huge division in the party. There have been several good articles recently about how Dems will lose significant support among Black voters if the nominee is anyone but Biden or Harris, and without Black voters we don’t win.
Flats Only
I’ve never understood why Kamala Harris is regarded as so terrible. And I think Nicki Haley was entirely correct when she said the first party to abandon it’s elderly candidate will win. Why not have that be the Dems? I prefer to take a chance on Harris at this point, vs. a free-for-all run up to the convention, so she can get down to campaigning and we can move on from the “who will take away Pop Pop’s keys” narrative. If Biden doesn’t step aside Trump will beat him in a landslide and I don’t want to have to print up “I did this” meme tee shirts in January.
Anon
Progressives hate her. More than they hate Biden and other moderates.
Anonymous
She was a prosecutor.
Anon
I have really had it with progressives and I’m a lifelong liberal.
Anon
Sure but enough progressives voted for Biden, and I would assume very few can stomach voting for Trump or not voting against him. So I don’t see how logically the progressive wing is the concern.
Anon
The progressives I know believe that lifelong liberals would prefer any Republican over a progressive and that this keeps helping the Republicans.
I’m not that politically involved but I don’t think it’s a big declaration that a liberal has had it with progressives.
Anon
Look at the laws surrounding when someone has to be on the ballot. That deadline has passed in many states, and unless Biden actually dies, state laws prohibit a replacement candidate.
Anon
Even if he’s currently unfit to hold office? That is my more immediate concern than whether he’s fit to run for office honestly.
Anon
Look up the relevant state law. I don’t make the laws; I am describing what they are.
Anon
+1
Runcible Spoon
He is currently DOING the office, and quite well by all accounts. If he is unfit, then the 25th amendment provides a pathway to replace him with the VP. But barring such a dramatic turn of events, the choice is going to be to vote for President Biden or King Trump in November.
Anon
I don’t know how you know that he’s currently doing the office. If the choice is between King Trump and the mysterious person who tells Biden what to do each day, yeah I’ll still vote for the latter, but it doesn’t feel exactly like saving democracy either.
Anon
My point is that even if you get him out via XXV, he might have to be the one on the ballot in November.
Anon
It’s very hard, maybe impossible, to prove he’s currently unfit to hold office.
Anon
I’ve had more medical work up for less severe symptoms.
Anon
+1 it will be complicated getting the person on the ballot and even if they’re on the ballot and somehow win, there will be successful legal challenges to their victory. How much do you trust the Supreme Court? Because they’re going to decide the election if a replacement Dem candidate wins the electoral college. I trust them 0%, especially after the last few weeks.
Anon
In which states has the deadline already passed? It seems odd that a major party candidate would need to be on the ballot before the candidate is officially nominated at the major party convention (which, I understand, is why there was concern about Ohio’s process).
Risked Credit
However what are the rules for the VP?
My thoughts are that Harris is the problem here, not Biden. I think a lot of people are hesitating to vote for Biden because the VP is a progressive who previously ran with what were some ‘far to the left’ ideas for the average voter. Switch Harris out for Gretchen Whitmer, or someone who is also more center left, and you have solved the problem because if Biden doesn’t make it, you have a strong VP.
I like the idea of Wes Moore as VP instead of Harris.
Anon
100% this. The VP needs to be electable as president because that’s what I’m thinking when deciding to vote. Trump vs whoever is VP to Biden. Harris is a terrible VP as she’ll put moderates off voting for Biden due to the likelihood of her having to step up to President. Blows my mind that nobody is shouting this from the rooftops.
Anon
In my fantasy world, Michelle Obama decides to run. She surrounds herself with a group of amazing advisors, and she wins.
I am scared. I’ve been trying to avoid the news, too, but after the debate it’s not so easy.
Where is Michelle!
She’s the perfect VP to calmly step in and diplomatically run the show. Michelle…your country needs you!
anon
This feels so much like the same shoulda, coulda, woulda that resulted in people not coming out to polls to support Clinton. You have two choices now. I just wish that some portions of the Dems would stop looking for the perfect candidate and rally around the one that we have. The GOP has done this, and we are really costing ourselves the election by not circling around an imperfect candidate
Anon
+1. I also think it’s a doomed self-fulfilling prophecy for Dems to endlessly opine that Biden can’t win now.
Anon
It’s not just an opinion; his approval ratings are terrible, and he’s not polling well either. And for years it’s appeared that he’d rather lose than improve as a candidate.
Anon
No one else is really polling better, and candidates who aren’t actually running ALWAYS do better in the polls. That’s a well-established thing, your polls drop when you announced your candidacy. Any other election is hypothetical and there’s zero evidence a different candidate would actually fare better than Biden in a real election. Plus there’s the issue of getting the person on the ballot and through all the legal challenges to their (hypothetical) victory, which will likely eventually be decided by the Supreme Court.
Anon
Completely agreed. Knock off the circular firing squad.
Anon
The Democrat Party’s worst enemy is the Democratic Party. It’s been true for decades. We have more popular support than the GOP but they rally behind their candidates and win elections when it matters.
Anon
They also run real primaries to identify candidates that are actually popular.
Anon
Nah not really. Trump won the primary in 2016 with ~30% support, and the other 70% pretty strongly against him. He was less popular than Biden is now, but most people in the party got on board and voted, which is what matters for elections.
Anon
I’m not saying he had a majority of support, but there was palpable enthusiasm and excitement that I believe helped with turnout and made him seem unstoppable.
The way Democrats campaign is demoralizing. They berate voters and blame them in advance for poor outcomes, and generally construct a strong us/them narrative that makes it hard to attract never voters or anyone on the fence. And instead of giving people positive reasons to get on board and vote, they focus on threatening people with what will happen if they don’t, not realizing that this makes people who aren’t already on board feel discouraged and helpless, which hurts turnout.
Anonymous
More like the GOP has been disciplined since Reagan on voting R. The person, aside from the MAGA nonsense, doesn’t particularly matter. They make an emotional case related to values and stick to the script for the most part. Democrats on the other hand are always making an intellectual argument which hurts them a lot of the time. There is no perfect candidate. Dems are stuck with Biden and they need to get on the bandwagon and suck it up.
Anon
There are no perfect voters. The Democrats need to suck it up and do something to appeal to the voters they have. There are no other choices.
Anon
I don’t see it as shoulda, coulda, woulda when polls have consistently been critical of Biden. People have been saying they don’t want to vote for him all along, and he still was the nominee. The system is so broken. I’m an always Dem voter, I will vote for him, but I shouldn’t have to. The race didn’t have to be Biden v. Trump. There’s plenty of alternatives to Biden, who also promised to be a one term president.
Anon
+2 The daily headlines about Dems wanting to oust Biden are only hurting the cause. He’s the nominee, start focusing on the positive PR
Anon
The New York Times can eff right off as far as I’m concerned. I’m a twenty plus year subscriber who is considering dumping them.
anon
The NYT is supposed to report the news, not act as an organ of the Democratic Party. The scandal is how long it took the NYT to write about what (according to that NY Mag story that just came out) the entire press corp knew about Biden’s issues. If they had done so earlier, maybe we’d have a better candidate now.
Runcible Spoon
Agreed. Their news judgment has been atrocious, focusing on “Biden is old and feeble” (not new information) to the detriment of circulating any information about the truly outrageous statements by Trump (giving him a pass as “Trump being Trump” and somehow none of this is new). Biden is presidenting quite successfully, by all accounts, and I didn’t see the NY Times calling for Trump to step down when he was convicted, nor reporting on all of his lying all the time. It was quite dismaying to see the NY Times include a fact-checking item in the newspaper today regarding a recent interview, when I have NEVER seen them to ANY fact-checking of Trump following ANY interview. I suspect a lot of this is driven by the powers that be at the NY Times who remain spicy that Biden hasn’t sat for a one-on-one with them. They remind me of guys who think that negging is the way to seduce a prospective romantic hook-up. Sure, if she doesn’t respond favorably, call her a bitch and that will surely drive her into your arms!
Anonymous
Harris plus a VP that will pull votes from a battleground state seems to be the best idea so far. She pulls in more female and diverse voters than Biden did and that plus a strong second name on the ballot could do the trick.
Senior Attorney
+1
Anon
Do you know any voters in swing states? Because I live in one and Harris is WILDLY unpopular here. Way moreso than Biden. The progressives think she’s too much of a cop, the moderates think she’s too far left, pretty much everyone has been critical of her lack of (perceived) accomplishments during the Biden admin and lack of public presence. Not saying I agree with that, I personally have nothing against her (I’d vote for any Democrat over Trump but would prefer her to many of them), but I cannot imagine her winning any Midwest swing state based on the number of committed Democrats I know who want nothing to do with her.
anon
Yeah, everyone is forgetting that progressives killed Harris’s presidential run. In this election, a lot is going to depend on voter enthusiasm and voter sense of urgency – Harris does not generate enthusiasm from anyone, and so it would all depend on whether enough people feel a sense of urgency about voting against Trump. And whether people on this board like it or not, it is clear in polling that the public’s sense of urgency about voting against Trump has dropped, crazy as that seems in light of Jan 6. The sense of economic malaise in the working class is incredibly strong right now.
Anon
Yeah, I wouldn’t say there’s enthusiasm about Biden, but people weren’t enthusiastic about him in 2020 either and he won. Everyone I know (who’s left-leaning or Never Trump R) is on board with voting for him again, even if they don’t have any enthusiasm about it. Based on conversations with friends and acquaintances, it seems like a solid percentage of these people won’t vote for Harris. I can’t imagine her winning my state. I don’t care what the polls say. Polls don’t vote, people do.
Anonymous
Progressives are a loud but not particularly large portion of the potential voters.
Anonymous
I’d vote for a grape before I’d vote for Harris.
anon
Really? Trump is better than Harris? Why?
Anon
That sentiment is common among the liberals and independents I know.
Anonymous
At least she has more upside than Biden. I just don’t see how someone who appears to be in such a steep decline can hold onto until November with all the stresses and pressures of the position. I think there is no overcoming nature. So sooner or later they will have to come to this decision
Anonymous
I am so furious with the media for focusing on Biden. We’re electing an administration, not one guy, and the amount of turnover in the Trump admin was insane. Also Trump is a fascist and in bed with Christo-fascists. If he wins I truly fear 2024 will be the last free election in this country for a while.
I’m next most annoyed with the Dems for not bringing up a lot of other Dems in high profile, LOUD spots to start building the bench. They’re so, so dumb.
anon
The media was too quiet about this for too long. Don’t be angry at them for reporting the truth – be angry that they didn’t do it sooner.
Runcible Spoon
Trump is also a felon. What is wrong with the media?
anon
the media where I am has extensively covered Trump’s trials and conviction, and during the debate about whether the Rs would nominate him, had tons of coverage of moderate R despair over the seeming unstoppable Trump momentum. Not sure where you live that there wasn’t coverage of all that?
Runcible Spoon
Did the media where you are issue editorials calling for Trump to step down from running for office when he was convicted? Because media where I am most decidedly did not, but called for Biden to step down after one poor showing at a debate. Running for office is distinct from holding office, and I fear the media (where I am) have conflated the two. It’s quite troubling.
Anon
Most of them already called for him to step down (or be removed) when he, y’know, tried to use violence to overthrow an election. I reasonably assume they aren’t going to change their minds if he’s convicted of the same
Anonymous
Michelle obama
Anonymous
Biden will lose because he is mentally impaired either in episodes or most of the time. He can’t debate. He can’t effectively campaign. I hate Trump but at least he knows where he is and can form sentences.
That’s our choice. Demented old man vs. convicted felon.
Cerulean
I think of it as a demented old man with a competent and experienced cabinet versus a convicted felon who will stack his cabinet with fascists.
Runcible Spoon
Yes, agreed. Hopefully, the voters will come to the same logical and emotional conclusion.
Anon
This. I really don’t care if Biden himself is all there. He surrounds himself with people who appear to be competent and decent, or at the very least are not known to be evil or incompetent. Trump is evil and is known to surround himself with people who are worse. Even if Biden is in a coma on election day, this wouldn’t be a hard choice for me.
Anon
Plenty of people perceive that Biden has surrounded himself with evil and incompetent people, both by specifically hiring sell-outs with questionable connections (e.g. to BlackRock) and by never replacing problematic Trump appointees, and people whose track record has been painfully bad since being appointed.
Anon
Let’s not pretend Trump is all there mentally either, people. I trust Biden’s cabinet more than Trump’s any day. I’d vote for a literal dog turd over Trump.
Anon
Agreed.
Runcible Spoon
BUT HE CAN PRESIDENT! And so very well, so far. No incumbent would step down against as poor a candidate (and former president) as Donal Trump, a feeble-minded, stupid felon, who is likely in the pay of foreign despots and therefore a severe national security risk, and vulnerable to corruption and selling pardons — even more so with the impunity that was recently awarded to him by the corrupt U.S. Supreme Court. When incumbents step down from seeking renomination, their party does not win. The foolish Democrats who are calling for Biden’s withdrawal should bear that in mind if they also will be on the ballot — they need his coattails, and absent an act of God, the choice is going to be to vote to re-elect President Biden or vote for King Trump. It’s that stark and serious.
Anon
Take a deep breath and touch grass.
Runcible Spoon
Wow, just wow.
anon
Yeah, like…I would not be going after Trump on influence peddling in a world where Hunter Biden exists.
Runcible Spoon
Hunter Biden is a private citizen. I don’t see a lot of focus on Jared Kushner, Donald Trump, Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump and their influence peddling antics. Not to mention the former president himself, who refused to put his closely-held family business (which was criminally convicted recently) in a blind trust or otherwise insulate it from him during his time in office. There is NO evidence that President Biden has fallen under the influence of foreign powers the way that it was quite obvious former president Trump was — just look at his reversals on policy while in office, and his remarks that if foreign leaders were “nice’ to him, he would support them. It’s just all so ludicrous to put President Biden on the same level as former president Trump, substantively, experience-wise, and more. No, they aren’t “all the same.”
Anonymous
Hunter Biden is in white house meetings. Doesn’t it bother you that a candidate who is claiming to defend democracy is likely making fewer and fewer decisions with advisors and handlers who were not elected making more and more of them? The defense of democracy is starting to ring hollow.
Anon
If Biden wins there will certainly be free and honest elections in 2028. If Trump wins, it’s very possible (many would say probable) that there will not be.
Maybe “democracy” is not the right term, and I agree it’s problematic for Biden’s advisers to be running everything, but it’s not going to destroy the country the same way that Trump’s election will and acting like they’re equally bad is very “but her emails.”
Seventh Sister
I think there are Dems who would be good candidates (Whitmer, Buttigieg, Klobuchar), but the “circle around” bit is the problem. ALL the money, all the messaging, all the GOTV, all the focus has to be there if Biden isn’t the nominee. The hyper-progressives (Sanders, etc.) have to get to their people and beg them not to “but her emails”/be spoilers for a new candidate.
FWIW, I feel like voting for President is like choosing a plumber (you don’t have a lot of choices and a broken shower in a 3-1). And today, the available plumbers are an old guy with old tools and a similarly-aged guy with a couple of plastic fence pieces and some broken bottles he picked up by the side of the road.
Anon
That’s such an amazing analogy! Thank you for bringing a smile to this conversation!!
Anon
Just for fun – what’s a splurge or aspirational purchase that’s either on your list or is something you’ve recently bought?
For me it’s colored wine glasses (not Estelle, because I’m too clumsy to spend that much on something I’ll probably break!) – its aspirational because I don’t need them (I already have perfectly fine wine glasses!) but they’re the style or vibe of what I’m trying to go for in my apartment.
Anon
I would love to be able to buy real art instead of prints from Etsy or wherever.
CK
Buy from art students! I work at a university so when there is an open studios event I attend. I’ve picked up some beautiful original art this way and love supporting student artists.
Anon
Vintage and antique shops are the place to go for this, there are tons and tons of affordable oil paintings in different subject matter. I haven’t bought anything but real paintings in years and average cost is $200-1000, and the best part is they’re also often framed.
Anon
I have a kitchen+ remodel coming up and spent some time this weekend browing at a high-end appliance showroom. Even though I love appliances, I’ve always rolled my eyes so hard at people who insist on Wolf and Dacor and-the worst-Sub-Zero. But geez, those were some beautiful appliances. The refrigerator interiors made me swoon; I hardly recognized myself when we left. So now I’m on the hunt for those names for something well south of full price.
Anon
It’s not exactly a purchase but I’m finding really good landscaping aspirational. I’ve been waking my greater area a lot since December, and have noticed which gardens – at least the ones I can see from the street – have weathered the seasons well so far. My landscaping is mostly DIY, but I am pretty sure I’d have to hire a landscaper to get want I would want to do to change it. Husband and I are in our retirement glide path, and I don’t see spending $20k on pretty flowers being a good financial plan, but I sure think about it a lot!
Anon
A new mountain bike.
I have a bargain mountain bike which is . . . Fine. I bought it from a guy in our ride group super cheap – it’s heavy AF and probably slightly too large for me, but I wanted to try mtb out before I bought a nicer mountain bike. I have a fairly expensive new gravel bike coming (~$6k) so the nice mountain bike will have to wait, but I am eyeing an Ibis Ripley AF in plum smash!
Anon
A nice designer tote bag for work. I just got a great deal on a pre-loved one!
Runcible Spoon
A Saatva latex hybrid mattress. I can’t wait for it to arrive in a few weeks. My current mattress is about 20 years old and sagging badly. It’s time.
Senior Attorney
I just bought a great pair of Stella McCartney white jeans with a multicolor marble pattern. I don’t usually spend that much on jeans but these just spoke to me!
Anonymous
A new Manduka yoga mat!
I just treated myself to a Manduka mat while at REI because my mom is long-term borrowing my old mat (10+ years old, highly rated from Amazon).
Oh my goodness, it’s beautiful!! Waaaay nicer than my old one that was supposed to be a dupe.
Anon
For those of you who travel a lot, do you just brush off things that go wrong on the trip? I am the trip planner in my family and I find myself looking back in trips and dwelling on the one thing that didn’t go as planned and I hate feeling like that. Some examples: we went to London – I chose a bad restaurant that purposefully tried to scam us on our bill, we went to France – I picked an Airbnb that had a really small, old kitchen and we accidentally burned something. In NYC, we lost a member of our extended family in the streets but thankfully found her about 30 mins later. I find myself thinking – only if X hadn’t happened it would have been a perfect trip, and stressing myself over planning for contingencies in the next trip. Any advice or suggestions?
Anon
We travel frequently with a kid and things go wrong regularly, especially with illness. I wouldn’t say I forget about it – I remember the time my kid caught a stomach bug in Spain and spent the whole first night puking, or the time I got strep throat in Iceland and was lying on the ground outside the Blue Lagoon feeling like $hit – but I don’t dwell on it. Iceland wasn’t great for a variety of reasons, but in general our trips have been a lot of fun and the thing that went wrong is just a blip. We never strive for a “perfect” trip though – I think that’s unattainable, especially with kids. We just hope most people in the family are happy 90% of the time. Maybe 80% if your kids are little and still tantrum-prone.
Anon
I try to frame it as it was a fun story to look back on or an adventure or at worst, a lesson learned. All of these seem like things that a) could happen anywhere, not just on vacation and b) could happen regardless of how much planning went into a trip.
The only time I really “regret” something on a trip is when the weather doesn’t cooperate with our plans, which I recognize is silly since obviously the weather is out of my control. But, wasting vacation days for a rainy beach vacation really upsets me.
Walnut
My travel mantra is “It’s either a good time or a good story.” Really, it works for most things in life.
CK
I love this!
Senior Attorney
Same. My mantra is “The worst travel disasters make the best stories.”
Anonymous
I’m sorry, but burning food is unacceptable any time, especially on vacation. Like there were obviously missteps all along the way that led to that result, starting with not properly evaluating the chosen accommodations, then probably in food selection, and certainly lack of mindfulness during preparation. Did they not do a test of the appliances before putting someone’s dinner to cook? don’t see how that makes for a fun story, especially if someone mentioned be actually missed a meal on vacation.
CK
I travel almost monthly for work or pleasures and go into it with the mindset that something will not go according to plan. I try to plan for contingencies but I know I can’t take into account everything. The key is to be adaptable, flexible and, if possible, not to let it ruin your trip and keep in mind the big picture–i.e., most of the things were fun, work event went well, etc. There is no perfect trip.
Anon
+1 to this attitude. I always forget something on every trip and need to remind myself that drugstores and shops exist in every place I’ve ever traveled so I can just buy a replacement.
If it makes you feel better we also had issues with dinner on our first night in London. To this day we all grumble about the ‘amazing!’ Thai place that wasn’t all that good, kind of dirty inside, and tried to charge us for another table’s food and then gave us grief about wanting to fix their error. It’s a good travel story and at least it taught my kids to always check their bills before paying for things.
anon
Nothing in life goes perfectly, especially not trips. I think aspiring to perfection is a good way to be unhappy. It helps me to focus on all the good stuff and think about whether, on balance, the good sufficiently outweighed the bad as the mark of a successful trip.
anon
+1
OP, do you address other aspects of your life like this? I worry about your stress/anxiety level, and the impact on people around you.
Is there a reason you are like this, do you think? Was your Mom like this?
Anon
Agree. This seems like classic ruminating.
Anon
It’s all for the story! If it went perfectly did you even take a trip?
Anon
I’ve never gone on a perfect trip and all of my best memories are of the things that went wrong (within reason, obviously- I’ve never been on a trip where anyone was seriously injured or died, though in retrospect many of my youthful outdoor adventures might have been pushing that line a bit closer that we should have). A trip that goes as planned is a boring trip.
Cora
All these things happen – its no one’s fault. The restaurant scamming you is the restaurant’s fault, not yours. And it could happen anywhere. The NYC story would definitely just be a funny story in my family – as is the time someone almost lost a wallet in NYC (but someone followed us down 2 blocks to give it to us) and an airbnb fiasco in Italy.
Travel is about the adventures. It’s never going to be perfect.
Anon
Something always goes wrong. But that’s usually the stuff of humorous dinner conversations for years to come – remember when we burned the potholders in that rental and had to use the fire extinguisher? Remember that dinner in NYC where the people at the table next to us wouldn’t pay the bill and fought the restaurant staff and the police had to come? (Actual example from my family.)
If you have to tendency to dwell on it rather than just chalk it up to “that’s life” then that’s a psychological thing with you. Are you in therapy?
Anon
Treat travel like a wedding: you KNOW something is going to go wrong. The trick is how you manage the hiccups.
anon
I travel a lot for fun. My job requires that I travel to developing countries, so I used to travel 2 weeks in Africa or SE Asia every other month. Something always always goes wrong. In the moment it sucks but what stories would you tell if nothing went wrong? We saw beautiful things and ate beautiful food is a very boring non-story!
Anon
Isn’t this part of the fun of travel?
Anonymous
Totally agree with the comments below – it’s either a good time or a good story! I have had so many travel mishaps over the years and they are stressful in the moment but so funny later. I once lost my passport and got stuck in the country for a week sorting out how to get home; my flight once got rerouted midflight and I ended up 6 hours from where I was supposed to go and rented a car with a random passenger I met at the airport to get to my destination; my aunt put an electric kettle on the stove and lit our AirBnB on fire; I’ve had so many cabs/etc. try to scam me, etc.
I think one thing that jumps out at me is that you view these things as “your fault” vs. accidents that just happen (e.g., burning something can happen in any kitchen; losing someone for a bit in a crowded city is more there fault than yours, etc.). I think framing these things as accidents/unlucky vs. something you caused could help.
CK
This reminds me of my favorite quote: “Live imperfectly with great delight”- Leigh Standley Sherri. Framing can make such a big difference!
Nesprin
My family is pretty good at blaming the person who makes the decisions for everything that goes wrong. It’s a godawful pattern that promotes inaction over enjoyment of adventure. In the best of cases you find something you wouldn’t have otherwise, and in the worst cases, a terrible experience makes a hilarious story six months later.
I’d suggest practicing reminiscing: “oh remember when we lost Aunt Susan? we were panicked but found her and the best views on our hunt”.
Anonymous
Does this tendency to focus on the one thing that went wrong because you didn’t plan happen only regarding trips? If so, then the tips on this thread about reframing are useful.
But if this is a fundamental thing about how you approach life (plan and execute perfectly or Face the Consequences), then the trips are just another time you experience this more pervasive pattern. And that’s a matter for therapy. Or anxiety medication. Or whatever other avenue is needed to help get at the underlying need.
anon
Well, after my friend told me her story about getting kidnapped while on vacation in Mexico City and her (ex-) boyfriend getting stabbed, it puts things into perspective. I think I can laugh off any “bad restaurant”, or old Airbnb kitchen. OP, I think either you have had a golden life so far, or there’s a reason why you can’t enjoy what sounds like a wonderfully smooth vacation.
Anon
Scary! My family have had more problems at home than traveling actually. Both my husband and my dad have been held up at knifepoint, in 2 different US cities, once during broad daylight and once leaving work.
Anon
My dad grew up in Brooklyn and has been mugged exactly once… in Des Moines. There’s definitely randomness to it.
Runcible Spoon
I try to focus on “it is what it is.” There is no perfection, so there is no point in aspiring for perfection — you set yourself up for disappointment 100% of the time. I recently took a long-awaited post-COVID trip — and caught COVID! Luckily, I was in a nice hotel for the 2/3 of the trip I suffered quite badly, and my journey home was tedious, but It was what it was, and I was grateful that I was able to pack in a bunch of sightseeing, dining, and shopping into the first 1/3 of the trip. I don’t dwell on what happened — it wouldn’t help, and is not productive. So maybe if you just focus on “it is what it is,” and the mantra another commenter suggested (“it’s either a good time or a good story”) seems super helpful! Good luck!
Anonymous
I travel a fair amount for business. You try to prevent mishaps as much as possible (e.g., reading restaurant reviews from multiple sources, booking hotels directly instead of through a third-party site, always bringing your own snacks and water on the plane). Some problems you brush off because they are inevitable and there’s nothing you can do about them (e.g., my flight that was delayed hours last week and for which there were no available alternatives). Other issues you mitigate (e.g., the creepy hotel that I checked out of immediately).
Peloton
Is the perfectionism isolated to travel, or does this “looking for the mistake and fixating on it” thing extend to other parts of your life?
If the former, accept that it’s part of travel—there are no perfect trips—or pay for a super high end travel agent / travel experience to minimize the risk.
If the latter, therapy.
Anon
I think spending $$$$in the hopes of attaining perfection is a mistake. Things will definitely still go wrong, but you’ll be more disappointed than before because you spent big money. All the money in the world doesn’t insulate against things like flight delays and scammy restaurants, and I’ve stayed in some really high end hotels that had surprisingly major issues. Yes, it’s nicer to pass a flight delay in the first class lounge rather than cramped into a seat at the gate but it’s still going to put a damper on the trip if you’re expecting perfection.
I agree on therapy if this is a generalized issue though.
Anon
I travel a lot, for work and for enjoyment, and think you might have an assumption about traveling that simply isn’t realistic. You can’t plan against things going wrong. Traveling is just like the rest of life, things happen. I think when you travel a lot you come to integrate it with the rest of your life and the hiccups don’t feel abnormal, but if you are only traveling rarely maybe the mindset is that the trip should be ‘perfect’.
CapHillAnon
It might be helpful to reframe. One thing we do when we are returning from family trips is to go around and talk about what we would do (or pack) again next time and what we would do (or pack) differently. I’ve started making a note on my phone with the lists for each destination, it only takes a few minutes, and it forces people to consider something in a positive light even if it was mostly a trip of misadventures. Sometimes the exact event I would characterize as a disappointment / something we wouldn’t do again is the thing that one of the children or my partner loved. That said, your post reminded me of a particularly disastrous restaurant meal in a foreign country involving a suddenly sick child (and fashioning an alternate outfit for her out of my scarf after cleaning her up in the ladies room), and then, as we returned to the table to gather our things and leave, another of my children somehow tripping while she was walking and instinctively grabbing the restaurant curtains for stability, inadvertently pulling them down with a huge crash into the table. It wasn’t funny for many years, and I still will not ever ever ever go to that town from the mortification, but now it is funny.
Anon
That’s hilarious.
After our most recent trip we all did our best and worst thing from each stop and it was really fun. Will definitely be a regular tradition going forward.
anon
I really love this.
Anon
I’m having some issues with friends that are very hurtful. I’m in this group of friends (four people) and we used to do stuff together all the time, we had an active group chat, I really enjoyed spending time with them. Now I’m always left out and I have no idea why. They do all sorts of fun things that I’m never invited to and I find out because they post about it on instagram. They have a group chat that I’m not part of and when I reach out to them, it’s mostly crickets. The worst was when they went on a weekend trip away without me, one that we had discussed going on together. I’m so confused! I never hear from them unless I’m the one making the effort. I asked my friend who I’m closest to if I did something and she said no. So I just don’t get it.
I have lots of other friends and I’m trying to concentrate my energy and time on people who actually want to spend time with me. But I can’t stop feeling hurt over this.
Anon
They are mean girls in adult bodies. i’m so sorry this happened to you, and I best advice would be to just try to refocus energy on other/new friends.
OP
Thank you, I guess you’re right.
Anon
These people don’t sound like good friends.
Anon
Is there one you’re closer to you can reach out to and find out what happened? I’ve seen this in some of my groups and usually someone thinks someone did something (or they did do something), gossip, left someone out, etc. May help you clear the air or at least know what happened.
Pep
They’ve moved on without you. It’s hard, I know – and it’s natural to feel hurt. If you’re still in any chat threads, quietly delete yourself and move on with your life.
Anon
I don’t think you’re actually in this group of friends. Sorry to say it. Time to meet new people.
Anon
Gently, these are not your friends. They do not act like friends, ergo, they are not friends. Focus your time and energy elsewhere.
OP
Thanks, it’s been hard for me to come to terms with it but you’re right.
Anonymous
So sorry. That’s hard. It’s more about them than about you so try not to take personally. hugs.
Anon at 11:55
It’s really hard. Try not to give them another thought. Hugs to you.
Anon
I’m so sorry – that’s so hurtful and confusing. If you’ve already asked the one you’re closest to what’s going on and didn’t get anywhere, that’s probably all you can do. But it sucks.
Anon
It’s hard being ghosted, but ultimately these “friends” showed you who they are. Believe them, and find some much better, real friends!
Anonymous
Time to leave the group chat.
Eggs
This happened to me about 10 years ago and I was so upset! They all posted all the time like they were all obsessed with each other. I would plan a fun thing for one of their birthdays and one or two would show up then the next weekend they would have a huge party doing the exact same thing and I was left out. Well it turns out it was because they were all doing c*ke and I rarely even drank alcohol let alone did or even clocked anyone was doing drugs. I thought we were all having fun. Sometimes it’s a blessing. I had no idea until several years later and now they all look bad and I have a much better group of like-minded healthy friends from the gym! Social media makes it worse sometimes.
help me rick steves
Any tips for managing a big family vacation? Being the lead planner for something like this is new territory for me, but my husband and I are the only ones in the group who have been to the bucket list national park in question before. There will be 10 adults, no kids, and a range of budgets and preferred activity levels. We’re getting a house. I don’t see a how everyone could possibly do everything together for five days–desired adventure levels range from a marathoner wanting to trail run through the mountains to folks who max out strolling on a flat, paved path–but people are already making noises about how it would be a waste of money to get two rental cars and can’t we just all pack into one van?
Also my brother in law thinks he knows it all. I will be grey rocking as hard as I possibly can but I might snap and leave his body for the bears.
Anon
How about you arrange the accommodations and let people do what they want for activities? You don’t have to do them all together.
Anon
+1
Anon
This is the way. You could plan a few activities and tell the group that those handful of dates and times and say to let you know who all is in for those by X date.
I’d hate being crammed into a van or even 2 cars (which would mean a grown adult would always have to sit in the middle for a whole week!) So if there’s a stalemate, I’d honestly rent a car on my own.
emeralds
Oh we’ll be getting two cars. I will not be responsible for my actions if I’m trapped in a 10 passenger van listening to my BIL backseat drive for five days.
Runcible Spoon
I would get more than two cars, if affordable. Nobody likes feeling stuck and 10 people are a lot to manage for universally crowd-pleasing activities and schedules.
Anon
Yeah, part of leaving it up to other people is letting them decide whether they want to rent their own cars or whether they want to join up with others (not you!) and rideshare. You do NOT have to be in charge of this!
Anon
I have been the person booking travel for my entire family of origin several times & my favorite expression was “I am not Julie, I am not your cruise director.”
Anon
I don’t know if that was an intentional Love Boat reference or not but I’m pretending it is :)
Anon
I am quite certain that it is, but thinking only the Gen X ‘rettes among us caught it!
Anon
I’m an elder millennial but used to watch old episodes (on VHS, lol) with my dad.
Anon
Yep, Gen Xer here. My mom was an avid Love Boat fan when I was a kid! Even the reruns.
Chris
We take a lot of group trips, and usually we just plan accommodations and one meal as a group (we typically cook that meal, but ymmv). Other than that, we end up splitting into smaller groups based on travel arrangements and activity preferences. I usually plan what I want to do and then invite others to tag along. If it’s the whole group, great. If not, that’s fine too. I also usually plan a grocery run to get what I want and tell others to add to the list if they want things. I do highly recommend multiple vehicles unless you are in a very walkable place/place with easy Uber/delivery options. To me there is nothing worse than being stuck at the house bc a group took the one vehicle for an activity and there’s no good way to get anywhere to do a different activity. The different budget part is the most difficult to manage, imo. It’s important to be conscious of that, but I wouldn’t let someone being super cheap make the trip uncomfortable, especially with lodging and transportation.
Honestly, group travel sucks if you’re not mostly on the same page. We have a good group now, but ime if you want to do something, plan it yourself. If you’re worried about money, make people pay deposits/installments. And everyone will have opinions but most aren’t reasonable and/or people won’t want to put in the effort to plan something different, so do you and let the criticism roll off your back.
Of Counsel
In your place, I created two Google docs. One was for finances related to the trip (including what I was actually out of pocket, how much each person/family owed, and when their payments were due. I marked off people who paid (one family member said it felt like I was shaming people who had not paid and yes – yes I was; I am not subsidizing this).
The second was the itinerary. It was broken up into “stuff for everyone” and “stuff I am doing/interested in doing that you are welcome to join in on; here is the cost and deadline to let me know/pay your share.” This was pretty detailed with the address of our Airbnb, confirmation numbers, etc. I also had a list of activities with costs that I was NOT doing or arranging but thought other people might find interesting.
Then I circulated it as a DRAFT that everyone was welcome to have input into. I begged for input. I asked for suggestions. I said over and over that I was not a tour operator and wanted everyone to have ownership over this. Only one person actually did that and it was not the same person who later complained – but the fact that I had done that made it easy to tell him to knock it off.
The one thing I really wish we had talked about more was meals. We had people who wanted to have a pastry or yogurt for breakfast and then head out. We had people who wanted to have a big, cooked meal which took an hour. We had people (in fairness mostly the ones with kids) who wanted to eat dinner in the house and others who wanted to go out – which would not have been a problem except that the ones who wanted to buy food for dinner somehow thought we should pool the cost of that food. Also, talk about transportation. If you have four “groups” and only two rental cars, who gets to decide where you are going and (most of the problem in our case) what time you are leaving (see 15 minutes vs. an hour for breakfast). Our trip worked out well but it was universally agreed that we needed a third car or to pick a place with public transportation (I am advocating for Paris) and next time we are only going to need to figure out a better way to handle the cost of meals (shared and not).
anon
I normally pick a handful of activities that I want to do and put them in a google doc. I normally do one easy-ish hike (free) and a some form of alcohol tasting (distillery, brewery, winery, boat cruise, etc.), plus some other activities. If there are real concerns about affordability, I would plan one activity as a private tour/rental (e.g., you pay for the whole group) and invite everyone to join at no cost. Invite others to join however many activities they want to and add to the google doc with their plans. (The marathoner will sort out their own runs, just give them time in the morning.) Basic approach is here is the itinerary, join, add to it, but I’m not going having fifty emails on which is the perfect hike. We’ve also assigned out meals for couples to handle to for the group so we can eat together as a family.
Anon
Oh definitely, definitely get two (or more) cars! For something like this, I like to rent a house that has a pool or is a short walk from a lake or beach or something so there’s something “to do” at the house. If there are any activities most people want to do, go ahead and have someone organize that but don’t plan on doing too much together. Plan on dinners together at the rental or out in town, but people can be on their own for breakfast and lunch (but stock up the rental with supplies and snacks).
I really like the common meals + one or two activities then everyone else does their own thing approach to group trips, and I like it even more for when there’s a wide variety of activity levels, interests, and budgets.
FWIW, I am a trail runner who does a national park vacation every other year and to me the trip is wasted if I’m not pushing myself on a challenging, technical, and long run or hike most days. My family is mostly very active (along with one member who thinks a lap around the block is too long for a walk!) but we have different interests – a trail run is my idea of a great vacation but no one else in my family trail runs. Meanwhile, my mom would go on an overnight kayak camping trip, but I only enjoy kayaking in small doses.
Nesprin
Biggest thing would be make sure every couple has a room with a door and as many vehicles as possible.
Loofah
+1 million. Also the more bathrooms in the rental, the better. Loo
Loofah
+100. Also the more bathrooms, the better.
Anonymous
I think with any large group, it works best if you split up some and accept you can’t do everything together, and absolutely get multiple rental cars. I think it’s best to have a few set activities for the whole group (a meal, an easy hike, whatever) and then leave it up to everyone else to fill in what they want to do with the rest of the time.
Anon
Just sympathy on the grey rocking the brother in law. I have one of those too. He’s also cheap. So there have been many times when he has suggested that his/my sister’s family of six could just “crash” with my family of four in accommodations we booked for just our family. Just no.
I cannot imagine choosing to rent a big enough house to accommodate him/them! That is specifically why we book our own house/hotel, car, flights. I would kill him by day 2. Hide the knives!
Anonymous
Can you hire a travel agent? It might be worth it not to be the go-between. Beyond that, I have no advice, only sympathy, as I can’t even get my immediate family (parents + 2 siblings in their 40s + a SIL) to sign up on a google spreadsheet to take turns cooking and cleaning up during our annual week at my parents’ beach house. I gave instructions: sign up for x number of cooking slots and x number of cleaning slots. No one who signed up online signed up for the right number of slots. My parents could not understand Google sheets so printed it out and signed up for like, 1 slot each. At one point there were multiple printouts plus the online version, none of which matched.
Seventh Sister
Lay it out immediately that no one has to participate in all activities, full stop. With the van, maybe frame it as a safety issue? If you’re all at the house and someone has to go to urgent care, having another car is probably a good idea. I’d have a rough plan for meals but having everyone do a big sit-down for each meal is unrealistic.
Anon
For those of you with a dining room and a long dining room table (we have one that seats 6 but could fit 8 with the leaves added), where on earth do you get table cloths? The largest size we can find in an oilcloth is really short still, so for use at holidays, IDK what to do.
Our kids have used it for homework and crafts, so I prefer a table cloth, preferably something like the oil cloth or with a pad underneath. We maybe shouldn’t have nice things, but it was a great mahogany craigslist find and we are using it for at least dinner so the kids won’t grow up feral / will have some knife skills.
Anon
I’ve never struggled to find big tablecloths and my table is almost twice the size of yours. Where are you looking? All the basic home stores carry bigger sizes.
Anokha
Not OP, but: I have a 87″ long dining room table, and have tried unsuccessfully to find a table runner. Most appear to be about 90″ long, which is too short. Any links/recs for long table runners – esp for the holidays, though they’re months away – would be helpful!
Anon
What I do is buy two long runners and have my dry cleaner stitch them together at a custom length that works for our table.
Anon
See below, Williams Sonoma, Anthro, Pottery Barn. Also Heather Taylor Home, Serena and Lily, and Sarah Flint. You can also search 126 length on Amazon and get some cheap ones.
anonn
Home Goods? I’m also pretty sure I’ve seen SoleildeProvence on Etsy recommended here. I have yet to pull the trigger. But probably should have before my daughter carved her name in to our table with a ball point pen.
Anon
We have outdoor linens (oilcloth tablecloth plus cotton napkins) for our outside dining table from Soleilde Provence and they are absolutely gorgeous. I highly recommend them.
I think Senior Attorney gave that rec ages ago – thanks again SA!
anon
Williams and Sonoma, Anthropologie, pottery barn.. All have 90-126 length options for runners and table cloths which should be plenty.
For a pad, amazon has a ton of table pads, i just buy closest size and trim as needed. If i am doing crafts at table, i remove table cloth and just use the pad, then wipe clean.
Anon
I usually get table clothes on Etsy and can choose the size when ordering.
Anon
Oil cloth is going to be shorter because it is casual and intended for dinette-sized tables, not full dining room tables. For more formal occasions, though, if you have trouble from the usual sources (WS, PB, etc.), you can overlap two shorter tablecloths, with a decorate side-ways runner in the middle if you want to hide the seam. A lot of banquet halls do this. Also, I have an enormous vintage linen tablecloth that I found on ebay forever ago. My table easily seats 10 with the leaves in, and it fits. So maybe scour ebay or etsy for vintage pieces that date to when tables were bigger.
Anon
OP here and this makes sense to me. Maybe the Soleil Provence lady can sew two together for me (or I can just get two and overlap them).
Anon
You probably can buy the waterproof tablecloth material by the yard at Walmart and get exactly how long you need. Mine is cut to fit the table top so that it doesn’t drape down and make my tablecloth hang oddly.
Anon
I have an 8 foot long table and get linens from Pottery Barn, Williams Sonoma, Saffron Marigold, and Ten Thousand Villages.
Anonymous
Also look at stores catering to Indians – I have found several that size that are easy to launder..
Anon
I’ve bought tablecloths 145 inches long on ebay, amazon,etc. It hasn’t been a problem.
Anon
Amazed nobody has said this yet. You can buy that oilcloth by the yard at fabric stores. Total deal and tons of choices. Love that you’re using preloved furniture!
anon
We buy custom sizes from etsy (I prefer linen tablecloths, and our table is weirdly narrow but long).
Anonymous
This dress would fill a very particular need in my wardrobe—a serious, solid-colored work dress that is good for hot weather and makes me look like neither a secretary nor an attorney. Unfortunately the exact midi length and the cut of the sleeves would look awful on me. Does anyone have suggestions for similar dresses?
Anon
This four day weekend was warm but not overly hot in my area and I just wanted to post an appreciation of summer dressing.
I shower at night so in the mornings, I can basically roll out of bed, brush my teeth, wash my face, put on sunscreen and throw on an easy combo of button front shirt and well worn cotton chinos, slip my feet into sneakers or sandals, and I’m all set. I love summer!
I love all the sweaters and lovely fabrics of winter too, and will be excited about those come late October, but for now I’m just loving the ease of summer.
How about you? Do you have a summer dressing formula?
Anon
I cannot express how jealous I am of this! Summer dressing is easy in my area, but there are no chinos or button front shirts! Tank tops and shorts or very light pants all the way.
Runcible Spoon
Super inexpensive cotton knit tank dresses in various prints from Land’s End — that’s my “at home” uniform in the summer, including WFH (with a cardigan on top for Teams meetings). I sometimes wear the more subdued patterned versions to the office (again, with a cardigan or shrug on top), on 90-degree+ days, with keds-type slip-on sneakers (“for the commute”) which I “might forget” to change into more officey-type shoes, depending on how many people are at the office. Or a sleeveless button-up collared blouse in a bright color over wide-leg, flowing elastic-waist linen-type fabric slacks with high-heeled strappy sandals. Those are my hot weather clothes.
Anon
Do you have to wear any kind of chub rub shorts under your dresses? That’s probably what keeps me from wearing summer dresses more often.
Runcible Spoon
Yes, at the recommendation of someone else here, I bought some biker shorts that have worked out very well — no riding up, no rolling of waistband, etc. I’ll put the link to the product at the Rainforest site in a separate reply, to avoid moderation delays here. Enjoy!
Runcible Spoon
Here is the link to name of the under-dress shorts that have worked well for me: “Sexy Basics Womens Ultra Soft Yoga Bike Short | Stretch Boxer Briefs | Multi Packs”. Just search for that, and enjoy!
Anonymous
I am jealous that you have hair that doesn’t need to be washed in the morning. I just cannot figure this out for myself. Never have. That means I often shower at night but then still have to shower in the morning, even if I can get away with just a quick hair rinse and body scrub.
Anon
Go to bed with wet or damp hair, sleep with a fan running, then use a soapy wash cloth on your armpits in the morning. I’ve accepted that I have to set the thermostat lower than I’d prefer overnight during the summer, otherwise I wake up sweaty.
Anon
I will be honest – I use a lot of claw clips. Which are great when it’s hot. Today I have a zoom so it’s down & lightly touched up (not perfectly) with a straightening iron.
Anon
What happens overnight, does it get greasy?
Anonymous
No. It gets . . . creased? Like it does not sit on my head right at the roots. And I don’t know any styling product that could fix it, other than water. Sleeping with it wet makes it worse and would create another set of issues because my hair is wavy, so would dry sort of hal wavy, half flattened. A claw clip would also make this worse and sounds extremely uncomfortable.
Anon
I meant that I wear a claw clip during the day to pull my hair back. But have you tired pineappling your hair at bedtime?
Anon
You have to spend a few minutes in the morning restyling it with a hair dryer and a round brush….
anonforthis
Question for those who have vacation homes (or whose family members do).
Assume you purchase a fancy, large vacation home in a pretty desirable and (relative to close family) easy-to-access location. You or your spouse have adult siblings (some of whom have kids) and living parents as well. Assume also that you plan to spend many (but not all) weekends there in the summer, as well as some weekends throughout the rest of the year. You do not plan to rent the house out when you’re not using it.
How often would you expect to invite family members to stay? Would you expect to invite them to use the house when you are not there? If you were the family member in this situation, would you assume you could use it regularly without the host being there? Would you feel hurt if the host family spent time there without inviting you to join every time?
Our families have never had a vacation home so I’m trying to figure out if it will be a good thing for us/our extended family or likely to cause strife.
Anon
I would never expect to be able to stay and would consider each invitation a gift!! My sister in law had such a house and there was a standing invitation for family to use it whenever her nuclear family wasn’t there. They’d often invite their parents to come along while they were there and would sometimes host everyone at once. We have used it a few times and will just ask her if they’re using it on a certain date and we ask very politely if we can use it. Always leave the place better than we found it.
Anon
I would never assume to be a functional co-owner of a house that I don’t own. The owner gets to make decisions about when to invite people, who to invite, and how long they can stay. That isn’t adult siblings.
My advice: don’t get all happy and wishy and overextend invitations early. “Oh you can use it any time!” Just set precedent by inviting people for specific dates and a set length of time. Remember that “no” is a complete sentence and don’t be afraid to say “no” to requests to use the house when you aren’t there.
Senior Attorney
Agree completely with all of this.
Anon
Unless your family is from a 1950s sitcom it will cause strife. We now have a ‘do not rent’ list and a blanket policy that nobody under the age of 25 is allowed to use the house without an ‘adult’ after two separate graduation party incidents. My siblings and I intend to sell the house ASAP after our parents pass away. I can share many (so many) stories of the ridiculous arguments and situations it has caused in my family over the years (my parents have had a beach house for decades). They generally break down to the following situations:
– Family members being SO offended about being charged a (very much below market rate) amount of money to cover the a cleaning crew and part of the utilities during their stay
– Family members use the house and lie about the amount of people coming and then have to be guilted into paying additional money for the water/electric bills.
– Family trashes the house in some way, destroying furniture/clogging pool filter/leaving trash all over the place and denies all responsibility.
Plus, if your home is located in a place with extreme weather it will be costly and difficult to find tradespeople/services to check in after storms and fix things in the off season – be prepared to pay big time for that unless you want to devote your weekends to fixing stuff.
Anon
This is all so family dependent. So my parents co-own a vacation house with my aunt and uncle (inherited after grandparents died).
Hiring a cleaning crew (as opposed to just ensuring you leave the house the way you found it) and charging for utilities would be beyond the pale in my family! However, I was staying with a friend at her in-law’s house and in addition to hiring a cleaning crew for the weekend, we spent about 4 hours cleaning the 2 bedroom cabin before we left.
Anon
What people think is “the way you found it” really varies by person. I think as long as everyone has to pay the same cleaning fee, then it’s the fairest way to do it.
Anon
Assuming the family members are good guests who treat the house well, I’d probably offer it regularly when I wasn’t using it, and would make sure to invite each family unit at least once a year.
I wouldn’t expect an invite as a family member though, and would *certainly* not expect to be invited every time my sibling took their kids to their own vacation home.
Anon
Strife. I know so many families where it has become the source of arguments and resentments.
Anon
We have a vacation home and invite family once a year to stay with us and would be open to more but our schedules don’t align so we have a big annual weekend on the books. We have a rule that we lend the house to no one. The only way to stay there is at our invitation and we are there. If someone is offended by this, they can buy their own vacation house. I do not have an obligation to share my toys.
Anon
+1,000 this is the way
Anon
I don’t think this is something you can crowdsource; this is entirely family dependent.
Anon
I think this basically just depends on your family. My family is not the kind that would have expectations and cause strife over this, but also not the kind that has the budget for fancy large vacation homes (or even small crappy ones, though I do know people with very basic lake cabins). I don’t think anyone should ever assume they have the right to someone else’s house, but that’s not going to stop entitled, obnoxious people from being entitled and obnoxious and the fact that you’re asking this question suggests that you have people like this in your family?
Anon
This.
Anon
I think family dynamics really matter here. Do you generally do things together / stay with family as opposed to a hotel / give family more or less free rein ? Do you tend to be more the merrier and informal in family interactions? Is hosting family for other things laid back?
My family is tight knit and informal – so while I wouldn’t expect totally open access to a family’s vacation house I would expect pretty frequent invites.
FWIW, my family is based in Philly and my grandparents have a shore house. The policy from when they bought it in the 1960s was the more the merrier – extended family, friends, guests of all sorts are always invited. Until recently the policy was that you didn’t even have to ask before inviting someone; now that the grandchildren are adults the house does occasionally fill up so we ask to see that there’s space, rather than ask permission, before inviting folks. Also, for us “no space” means the couches and floor space are filled up too. We only get that level of filled up once or twice a year – there are also plenty of times I’m there with like one or two other people.
With my family dynamic, it’s fun. You walk in and really don’t know who you’ll see – maybe great aunt Martha, maybe some of my parents’ friends, maybe my cousin and his friends, maybe my second cousin, her husband, and kids, maybe my aunt’s in laws?
Obviously this style of living is not for everyone! But it works in my family – where I didn’t know people stayed in hotels while visiting family til I noticed it on this board.
Anon
Yeah, this is super family dependent. My mom and her siblings are not close and have had their fair share of drama, but have all done a good job of sharing a vacation home (their late parents’ home) with minimal drama. I’m not sure it’s possible to know in advance how it will go though.
Anon for this
I have a couple examples where this works well:
My sister’s in-laws have a lake house which is quite close to us. There is indeed a list of people who are not allowed to stay or who must stay with ‘adult supervision’. Generally, sister and her husband stay frequently as they live close; however, her BIL stays on the major holiday weekends (4th, Labor Day, etc.) so it oddly evens out. Nobody is asked to pay; however, you are asked to leave the house as you found it. Her MIL runs the calendar so you just need to go through her.
The example of what I see as the ‘dream’. Family friends have a lake house which originally belonged to the grandparents and now is used by their kids and (adult) grandchildren. Every 4th of July weekend they have a family mini-reunion and meeting where they make joint decisions and draw numbers for the numbered weeks of summer that they will have. They have a formula for how much each person contributes and I know they use a management company to rent out some unused weeks and those funds go into the house operating funds.
Anonymous
My family actually likes each other so if like my sister bought a large vacation house I’d expect to go pretty frequently and that she’d be fine with me using it when she isn’t.
Anon
It’s possible you’re the entitled one and you don’t know it.
Anonymous
Wild the way no one here can let anything be good? She just likes me and I like her?
Anon
Your hypocrisy is so glaring I need sunglasses.
Anon
It’s great that you like her and she likes you but I think “expecting” to go to someone’s vacation home frequently is pretty entitled, unless that person is your spouse.
anon
Uh, I really like my sisters and they like me, but that’s really … something … to assume that your sister would be OK with you using her property when she’s not using it. Unless you’re paying half, it is definitely not OK to just assume you can use it as you please.
Anon
“My family actually likes each other”
reads as if having a different approach means one comes from a family that doesn’t like each other. Frankly, I’m pretty sure you meant to sound snarky. If so, I’m doubling down on the other poster’s comment that you’re probably the entitled one.
Anon
Girl, I like my family too but that doesn’t mean they get a set of keys to my country house.
Senior Attorney
Right? One of the reasons I like my relatives is that they don’t treat my property as if it were theirs.
Anon
Oh I could write an essay (and in fact I think I did here when the original purchase went down). I bought my brother and sister’s shares in our family lake house when my parents passed and then had to deal with WWIII with my brother when he found out my in-laws had an open invite (they helped us finance it). I agree with whoever said there is no one size fits all solution here. Families are different.
In our case, my brother is no longer invited. Full stop and to the point where my lawyer had to write a letter. I usually invite my sister and her family for a long summer weekend (in fact we spent the 4th there together). I would not let her use it on her own. She is not a bad person but she has three kids, a husband who is a slob, and none of them treat the house like it belongs to someone else. Fortunately my sister does not have an issue with that and thinks it is completely fair that she got the money when I bought her out and I got the house.
My in-laws on the other hand are welcome any time. My mother and father in law and my husband’s sister and her family (and sometimes some of their friends) go all the time with and without me because they are going to treat the house well and leave it cleaner than when they arrived. I do not charge them for utilities, but again my mother and father in law “loaned” us the money to buy it (really an advance on my husband’s inheritance).
You have to assess your own family to decide how to handle the situation. (Although I will add that I would never let a bunch of high school or college students stay there on their own – that is just asking for a multitude of problems so that is definitely a discussion I will need to have with my SIL in a few years.)
Anon
If your SIL is a halfway reasonable person, she will completely understand you not wanting teens there alone. I feel like any adult over 25 would understand that.
Anon @ 12:57
Oh I do not think SIL will have an issue with it! She has a tendency to think her kids are special angels who would never . . . but she is under no similar illusions about their friends.
Also I want to push back on some of the negativity around this subject. Yes – my brother is an ass (not a new development I should add). But I really enjoy the time with my sister and her kids and am happy the cousins are getting the time together that I had with mine when I was a kid. It is not perfect because we have very different media rules which sometimes causes some strain, but on the whole it is worth it. And my in-laws and their friends have never been a problem and I am happy to share with them. They do generally expect that if the house is free they can use it if they want but I set that expectation and they do always ask rather than demand. Reasonable people operating in good faith can make it work.
Anon
I just responded “strife” above. Your situation is like my bestie’s. She had to buy her siblings out of the family vacation home when her parents passed, but her brother and his adult children all refer to it as “the family summer home” and expect full access to it. It has caused so many hard feelings, mainly because her brother is an entitled ass and has raised his kids to be that” but they also don’t believe an unmarried woman with no kids has any right to the house despite the fact that she paid for it.
Runcible Spoon
Similar situation here, and I am bracing the time when my mother is gone and my entitled sister continues to expect free access (and I mean “free” access) to “the family summer home,” whether or not her siblings buy her out. She’s going to balk at any expectation that she pitch in equally to finance the upkeep, and she’ll feel that buying some fetching cutlery and cute napkins should be an adequate contribution while other family members can go ahead and shoulder the financial weight of paying for repairs, insurance, taxes, and so forth. Sigh, fun times to come.
Anonymous
I would mostly invite people to stay when you are there. Then, over time, if someone mentions wanting a getaway, you can offer it specifically at your discretion.
I would say that if you do plan to have people there without you, that you effectively set it up like an AirBnB with the kind of manual you find in a good rental.house so you do not spend your weekend answering guests’ questions.
Anon
My parents have a lake house that’s within an hour of most family members. How often do they let other people use it while they’re away? Literally never. Never ever. It’s a terrible idea for so many reasons, from annoying property damage to major safety issues on the boat. They invite family up one or two weekends per summer. It’s a lot of work hosting at a vacation home. You have to pack all the food and beverages you plan to serve, and then spend a beautiful summer day prepping indoors. They have some “easy” guests who go with the flow and bring provisions or accept what my parents have on hand without complaint. Other people expect to be catered to, so the ones who whine that their preferred beer isn’t in the fridge aren’t invited as often. Overnight guests are even more of a pain. After learning this the hard way, my parents intentionally made the guest rooms uncomfortable. Very basic bedding on an old mattress, minimal furniture, bedside table just a little too far from the nearest outlet…people stopped inviting themselves to sleep over once they realized they’re more comfortable heading home at night. It sounds dramatic but after years of frustration my parents realized they don’t owe the family frequent access to their home.
Anon
Haha love the uncomfortable guest room furniture!
My guest bed in my regular home is a futon. I live in an area lots of people want to visit (Bay Area) & houses are smaller here for most people, so we need the “guest room” to function as a room with a couch in it most of the time. So if people are uncomfortable sleeping on a futon, they don’t really need to stay here I guess! I would say around 20% of people who ask to stay with me are actually here to visit me rather than looking for a thrifty vacation, so….
Sarah
How formal are you in internal conversations at work?
I work at a start up and we mainly communicate through Slack. I have a pretty direct & casual speaking and writing style – nothing inappropriate or rude or mean, just not flowery/corporate. Probably because I’ve mainly worked in start ups where people are rather casual. And this is how I speak all the time, including in interviews, so it shouldn’t be a shock to anybody.
Anon
I too am very direct in internal conversations at work. I come from a background where things are orders, not requests, so I tend to get straight to the point. My mentor, who has the same order giving background I do, is much better at starting conversations with pleasantries. I’m trying to follow his lead, but it’s hard to adjust.
Anon
I’m an extremely direct person. I’m also nice, and people like me. But I don’t deal well with obliqueness as a recipient, so my own style is one I would understand if I were on the other end.
No Problem
Extremely casual, especially with anyone I’ve talked to before or known for awhile. For anyone new, I certainly pay attention to ensuring I have a pleasant greeting and all that, but with anyone I’ve been working with for awhile it’s just like having a running verbal conversation. There’s plenty of straightforward and direct business (assigning tasks, asking questions, etc.) and lots of funny/personal/emojis/gifs sprinkled in. And I’m kind of in the upper middle in terms of hierarchy/experience/level in my team. I would say that almost everyone I work with is equally informal with everyone else regardless of level. If someone is more formal, it has more to do with their specific personality than anything else.
London restaurant help
In Houston so having trouble working remotely and instead going to focus on trip planning! We’re going to London for my parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary and want to do one nice meal out. Staying in Kensington. Not like a five course situation (they aren’t the type) but nice setting and food and not worried about budget. Any suggestions? Help me narrow down my search!
Sunflower
I just had a birthday dinner at Le Colombier. The food and service were fantastic. And this may be important in your group: the atmosphere on a Friday night was lively but not so loud that we couldn’t hear each other.
https://lecolombier.restaurant
Seafinch
I absolutely loved Roast at the Borough Market. I did two Michelin starred place and it was better. I also liked Bob Bob Ricard, because there was champagne button and for a 50th I think that is really special. The food was quite good. I think you couldn’t possibly lose with the River Cafe but I haven’t been, just a fangirl.
Anonymous
If I am not staying with family when visiting from the US, South Ken is my home. On a very wet evening desperately looking for somewhere to eat we landed at The Kensington. Despite eating in a hotel that evening was memorable for us all. The food, wine, and service were excellent.
Anon
Hand’s down- FFiona’s. It’s near you. It’s charming and Londony, and so delicious. Cannot recommend more highly.
Anon
I ate at FFiona’s on someone’s rec from here and second this! We absolutely loved it. Cozy, charming, excellent service and food.
For poster who wanted to buy bookstore
There was a post here a few weeks ago about someone in a suburban town considering buying a bookstore (or maybe buying a space and opening a bookstore, I can’t remember the details). I read a great article in the New York Times this weekend about a new trend of romance bookstores popping up. I thought that would be so fun if my suburban town had that type of store and I bet it would be popular here. If the OP of that thread is still reading, you should consider that theme! The article was “Romance Bookstores Are Booming, Dishing ‘All the Hot Stuff You Can Imagine’”
Anon
Has anyone done genetic screening tests like Invitae for cancer? We don’t have a big family history of it but my mom died of pancreatic cancer (which, 2 years ago, I was reassured was just a fluke and not really inherited in her case, which I still believe). A sibling and her wife are trying to get us all to do expensive screening tests and IDK if they are ever helpful (esp with pancreatic cancer), but they have kids who are genetically related to us so I also get the panic. WWYD?
Anon
Yes, I did it due to a strong cancer history (three of four siblings in my father’s generation, plus their mother) and found it helpful. I prefer having more information than less.
Anon
That makes sense. But with just random cancers and a more vanilla family history, is it even helpful? My understanding is that cancer is mostly random mutations vs heritable with such a small area where it is heritable that you likely know if you are in that bucket early on in life.
Anon
It’s a good question. If I were worried about pancreatic cancer, I personally might make different weight management choices (e.g. put more effort into weight management but possibly avoid Wegovy). I might make different choices about vices (I already avoid second hand smoke, let alone first hand, but I can imagine being more careful with alcohol and soda and processed meat, even though that’s a good idea anyway). I might get a Hep B vaccine I wouldn’t have otherwise. Etc. But I could do those things with or without a genetic test result.
With pancreatic cancer, there’s a gene change that causes chronic pancreatitis and you’d know that early in life. But there are also a list of genes that just increase risk. These aren’t hereditary conditions, but we know that people with certain variants of certain genes just get pancreatic cancer more often than people with other variants of the same genes. So that is where it might motivate me to try to moderate my risk a little more than my peers do.
https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/pancreatic-cancer/causes-risks-prevention/risk-factors.html
Anon
It’s both the case that people overestimate the heritability of cancer and that you could fairly easily have a family risk that you’re not aware of, especially if your family is relatively small and people died early of other things. In the case of pancreatic cancer, the genetic risk is tied to other types of cancer as well, so I’d be more inclined to do testing if you have other family members who died of any type of cancer, especially breast, ovarian, or colon. But if you have a large family and everyone lived until their 90s, then it’s fairly unlikely that you’re missing a family genetic risk.
Anon
And just to give a personal example, I had a close friend who died of breast cancer a few years ago. She had a BRCA mutation, but didn’t know about it until she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in her early 40s. Her dad was of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, didn’t have sisters, and many of his relatives died in the Holocaust so she didn’t know of other relatives that died of cancer. Current recommendations are for women with Ashkenazi heritage to do genetic testing due to high prevalence of BRCA mutations, which also can increase pancreatic cancer risk.
Anon
Isn’t the real issue that sibling and her wife aren’t in charge of your medical care and preventive screening? Kick them out of your lane. They can get their own screenings and if that isn’t somehow enough, too bad.
Anon
Maybe they feel with a likely donor they may have unknowns on that side so want all info available?
Anon
Donor for what? No one has the need for that from how I read the OP’s post. Screening your siblings as potential donors for nieces and nephews who aren’t even sick is… very strange.
Anon
+1
Anon
I assume she means that they know nothing about kids’ father’s family history, as he was presumably a donor?
Anonymous
No, the assumption is that with a same-sex couple, there my be an anonymous donor parent whose genetics are not available.
Anon
Oh my— I am the outrage poster above and completely skipped over the donor aspect. I thought this person meant they were lining up organ donors for healthy children just in case.
I’m embarrassed, but I still don’t think one adult has the duty to take an invasive test for another :) Please carry on.
Anon
I don’t know about risk factor screenings, but for actual genetic conditions, it can sometimes really help to get more relatives to participate in testing. Biology doesn’t really care about modern ideologies of individual boundaries and yes it’s often awkward and counter cultural (this is one reason why genetic counselor is a profession).
Anon
Sure, but it seems like this would be relevant if the kids were sick with a suspected genetic illness and no one could figure out why. Even in that case, it might be helpful in a certain way, but it would not be required. It also doesn’t seem to be what’s happening here.
If the parents are concerned about their kids’ risk factors that could be rooted out via a genetic test, then they should get the KIDS to take the test, not pressure the other adults in the family.
Anon
The fact that there *might* be a benefit still doesn’t give them the right to demand it, let alone foist the cost on them. “But like science!” does not actually give someone a right to invade someone else’s body that way – and I say this as an engineer.
It could also affect insurability for the people taking the test. They have every right to honestly tell their life insurance companies that they have no known genetic cancer risks.
Anon
I wonder, does it not affect insurability even if they don’t take the test? Relatives are related, and any legally acquired health data is valuable, and insurers can ask about relatives too.
Anon
Yeah, this. They don’t get to decide what you do, even if you are genetically related to your kids. If you want to, go for it.
Anonymous
This. You can do whatever you want. Even if you do decide to get screened, you don’t have to share your results with your sibling.
Anon
Cancer isn’t one of the things that runs in my family, but for the things that do, I always vote yes for screenings. I appreciate having more knowledge, and I find that if I have it, it’s possible to act on it in one way or another (motivating me to take action on lifestyle factors or bucket list or supporting or participating in research or even just going to my checkups and not skipping them, extra information to consider when making a decision about the risk/reward analysis for treatment approaches for other conditions, and so on).
Anon
Are there other things to get screened for other than cholesterol, sugars, and blood pressure? Husband’s family are poster children for the benefits of starting statins early but my family seems to live either long or long-short get struck down randomly (left body dementia and Parkinson’s).
Anon
Sometimes there are other things if something has showed up in the family history (for example, inheritable structural issues with the vasculature can lead to aneurysm development in multiple members of a family, so imaging to look for this was medically recommended after the issue was found in one relative).
Early screenings for Parkinson’s are still in their nascency last time I checked, though there’s a lot of interest in this right now and some progress is being made (I think the hope is that this will also lead to early interventions).
I’m not sure about genetic screenings though; many genes have been identified in connection to both these conditions (there’s actually a big study going on right now asking current Parkinson’s patients to be genetically tested to advance research). But I’m not sure that genetic testing is at the point of telling people anything they don’t already know (the risk runs in the family, but not everyone gets it… not everyone with the risk factor genes gets these conditions). And just knowing the family history can be helpful on its own (there are some medical interventions that may lower risk, like staying up to date on vaccines, or if there are other medical conditions, taking certain medications to treat them vs. others).
Anonymous
According to the American Cancer society, none of the screening tests are proven to decrease risk of dying from pancreatic cancer.
They can screen their kids if they want, but they don’t get to have input on your medical care. You should talk to your doctor.
Anon
Wouldn’t it take decades and decades before we’d even know?
Anon
No, because pancreatic cancer is so deadly. It isn’t like ovarian or something, where you can preemptively remove the organ, or skin, where you can monitor for moles.
Anon
I understand it’s very deadly once it appears, but I thought it usually appeared in the fifth or sixth decade of life, so I wasn’t sure enough time would have passed yet to see benefits for people who did genetic testing early in life? The doctor who replied below said that early screening in the high risk is benefiting patients already, so probably I am wrong and the American Cancer Society is not up to date.
Anonymous
What is the goal.of gathering this information on behalf of children? As a stick to encourage prioritizing health? I understand testing for BRCA if you are willing to get a preemptive mastectomy if you are positive, but what is the practical benefit of the proposed testing? I did see another commenter refer to using the info to assess risks of certain medical treatments for other conditions, but that seems more relevant to things like cholesterol, blood pressure, blood clots, liver function, etc
anon
One reason I pushed my brothers/male cousins to be tested is several of the genes that contribute to pancreatic cancer risk can cause a higher risk of breast cancer in women too, so it is important for THEIR DAUGHTERS to find out if they carry a high risk cancer gene to start early exams and screenings many years (decades) before they would have otherwise. So while every single one of my male relatives wanted to brush off genetic testing and not bother, their wives and daughters (they all have daughters) were all very eager to get the information and had to push their male relatives to get their acts together and get tested.
The main reason for genetic testing for cancer risk is to modify screening plans. Screening for cancer is to catch it early while it is small/non-invasive, so you can remove it and cure it. That is the practical benefit.
And yes…. many women will choose to have prophylactic mastectomies if they are found to be BRCA+. Every individual/family is different.
Anon
But couldn’t the daughters have gotten tested if they really wanted to know?
anon
Yes, and that was their plan if their father’s continued to stall.
But the easier (cheaper) way is to have the parent tested first. If my male cousin was found to be negative for the cancer genes, then the kids don’t need to be tested at all! None of them! And my goal was not even TELL the younger kids about the genetic testing we were doing unless their parent came up positive, to minimize their worry/stress for the kids. Some of the (second?) cousins already lost their mother to breast cancer at a very young age (but she was not genetically related to her kids – she had an egg donor), so there was a lot of anxiety about cancer risks among the youngest generation. I didn’t want to stoke anxiety by pushing them to be tested unless their father came up positive. But their father’s were not very thoughtful (!) and ignored my recommendation to get tested themselves before talking about it with their young adult daughters….
anon
ugh… fathers
anon
Yes, I have done genetic screening tests at Invitae for cancer. My mother also died of pancreatic cancer.
It was cheap, fast, easy. I even did my genetic counseling appointment to decide on which Invitae test to order via their partner company, Genome Medical. Also inexpensive, and fast.
It is now recommended that every patient with pancreatic cancer (PC) get genetic testing. My Mom didn’t, even though I asked for it, because it wasn’t standard at the time she was diagnosed. But if your Mom didn’t get genetic testing herself to see if she carried a higher risk cancer gene that could have been passed on to you, the recommendations are that every 1st degree relative to her should get genetic testing now. So that means you and your brother, and if your Mom had any siblings, they should be tested.
Do you have any other relatives on your Mom’s side of the family with cancer? We do, so that also motivated me to check. I am also a doctor and realize the benefits/risks of early testing, and I know how hard it is to diagnosed pancreatic cancer early and how deadly it is. The data is also showing that people found to be genetically high risk of getting PC are actually showing a large benefit in early screening – they are detecting a very significant number of cancers early, and patients are getting surgery early … which is the only way to cure it.
I was the first to be tested. I was found to have inherited a more uncommon cancer gene from my Mom. It was very good for me to learn this, as I am higher risk now for several types of cancer (biggest risk is breast cancer), so my breast cancer yearly screening has changed to MRIs + mammograms and more frequent exams by physicians. My brothers got tested and one has it and one doesn’t. My cousins are in the process of getting tested, as my mother’s one sister has already died.
But it isn’t yet clear if my pancreatic cancer risk is high enough to start aggressive PC early detection screening (MRCP alternating with EUS yearly and monitoring for new diabetes). So my plan is changing by the year, as new recommendations are released as research continues. But I have had my first baseline MRCP, and we follow my HgA1c to see if diabetes is creeping up on me (1-2x per year), and am pretty good about lifestyle issues to minimize my chances (no alcohol, eat decently, no diabetes! etc…).
But I heard recently that Invitae is running out of money and may be going out of business. Too bad, as my experience was very good with them.
Anon
I am not OP, but thanks for this really helpful reply! I think LabCorp is buying up Invitae, so I don’t think they’re going to just vanish. Their customer service was too good to be true in my experience, so hopefully some of that will survive the transition.
Anon
(And I am sorry for your loss. I think in my family, grief has been the biggest obstacle for following up on recommendations that were made in the context of losing someone to a serious illness.)
anon
Absolutely. It was for me too. I didn’t do my own cancer genetic testing until many years after my mother died, although I knew for years I should. It is just important to get it done at least 10 years before the age your mother passed (for PC at least). I knew this, so it helped me rationalize stalling.